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Code to learn with Scratch? A systematic literature review

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DOI: 10.1109/EDUCON.2016.7474546

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 Code to learn with Scratch?
A systematic literature review

Jesús Moreno-León Gregorio Robles

Programamos.es Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Sevilla, Spain Madrid, Spain
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The use of computer programming in K-12 spread Mitchel Resnick, the director of MediaLab and creator of
into schools worldwide in the 70s and 80s of the last century, but Scratch, explains the differences between the approaches of
it disappeared from the educational landscape in the early 90s. both proposals in his article ``Learn to code, code to learn”
With the development of visual programming languages such as [1].
Scratch, this movement has emerged again in recent years, as
teachers at all educational levels and from different disciplines This approach is not new, Seymour Papert, among others,
consider that the use of programming enhances learning in many created already in the 70s the Logo programming language to
subjects and allows students to develop important skills. The allow children to use computers to create games, composing
systematic literature review presented in this article aims to music or painting recursive drawings [2]. However, even
summarize the results of recent research using programming though in the 80s many schools taught students how to
with Scratch in subjects not related to computing and program, programming disappeared from the educational
communications, as well as studies analyzing the kind of skills landscape in the 90s in part, as authors like Kafai and Burke
students develop while learning to code in this environment. point out [3], because programming was not integrated with
Although the analyzed papers provide promising results other subjects of the curriculum, beyond mathematics and
regarding the use of programming as an educational resource, physics. Resnick himself, in his article Reviving Papert’s
this review highlights the need to conduct more empirical Dream [4], explains that the lack of interest in programming
research in classrooms, using larger samples of students that
was also due, firstly, to the problems that students and
allow to obtain clear conclusions about the types of learning that
teachers faced trying to learn the language syntax and,
could be enhanced through programming.
moreover, because the activities used in the classrooms did not
Keywords—Computational thinking, Scratch; Systematic match the interest of students.
Literature Review, Learning; In recent years new programming languages have been
designed to be visually programmed without the need to learn
I. INTRODUCTION
the syntax, as it is the case with traditional languages.
In recent years we are witnessing a movement that seeks to Languages like Alice, Kodu and especially Scratch, have
promote teaching of programming in schools worldwide. In reawakened the interest of the educational community in
America this movement is led by Code.org, a nonprofit programming. Moreover, the Scratch team learned from the
foundation devoted to expand participation in computing; even previous experiences to develop a language that permits the
the U.S. president cooperates with the initiative encouraging creation of many different types of projects, so that learners
young people to learn to code1. In Europe, the vice president with different interests and learning styles can find ways to
of the European Commission sent a few months ago a letter to express themselves through programming [5].
the European Ministers of Education urging them to promote
the inclusion of programming in schools in order to alleviate Thus, since the release of Scratch in 2007, new initiatives
the problem of youth unemployment in the continent2. In both around the world have been raised to teach programming to
cases, this movement is primarily focused on the lack of IT children and youngsters. In addition to extracurricular
professionals that exists today and is expected to be increased activities [6] and summer camps [7], teachers from all
in the coming years. educational levels, both in schools [8], high schools [9] and
even universities [10], have begun to introduce programming
In addition, some scholars from the educational and the in their classes. Activities to learn different disciplines, such as
scientific community have shown interest in the benefits that a mathematics, science, arts, music or languages, as evidenced
child can acquire by learning to code regardless of the field of by thousands of resources in over 10 languages generated by
his/her future professional activity. In this scenario, coding is educators are shared in the ScratchEd website3.
not as an end in itself but a tool to develop other skills and to
improve learning outcomes and motivation of students. Nevertheless, if there is no evidence showing educational
impact of programming, it is possible that this resurgence of
programming in schools disappears in a few years, as it
1  http:  //www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/12/09/don-­‐t-­‐  just-­‐play-­‐your-­‐
phone-­‐program-­‐it    
already happened in the 90s. The essential question that we try
to answer in this paper is therefore whether computer
2  http://ec.europa.eu/digital-­‐agenda/en/news/promoting-­‐  coding-­‐skills-­‐
europe-­‐part-­‐solution-­‐youth-­‐unemployment 3  http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu    
programming, when used as an educational resource, can re- views in software engineering” [16], where a systematic
improve the learning of subjects not related with information literature review is described as ``a means of evaluating and
and communications technology (ICT). To answer this interpreting all available research relevant to a particular
question we have performed a systematic literature review to research question, topic area, or phenomenon of interest, using
identify if evidence exists on educational benefits of a trustworthy, rigorous, and auditable methodology”.
programming in K-12, summarizing the most important
empirical findings in order to suggest lines for future research. A systematic literature review involves three general
phases [17]: planning the review, conducting the review and
This study focuses on the use of Scratch, since it is the most
used visual programming language, with over 8 million users4, documenting the review, each of which includes several
activities, as Fig. 1 illustrates. This section describes the main
and there are studies that argue that depending on the
programming language different skills sets are developed [11, decisions we took in each of these phases.
12]. Firstly, this review was guided by the following research
The paper is structured as follows: in Section 2 findings of questions:
other literature reviews related to the topic discussed in this 1. What K-12 subjects have used programming with
paper are summarized; Section 3 explains the procedure we Scratch as an educational resource?
have followed for conducting the literature review,
determining the questions that have guided the work, the 2. Is programming with Scratch a good educational tool
searches we have performed and the selection and exclusion that enhances student learning?
criteria we have used; Section 4 presents the results of the 3. What other skills are developed while learning to
review, summarizing the conclusions and findings of the code with Scratch?
papers selected for revision. Finally, Section 5 includes the
conclusions of our study. From these questions, the following search string was pre-
pared:
II. BACKGROUND
(teach OR teaching OR learn OR learning OR education
Prior to this study we searched for other systematic OR educational) AND (code OR coding OR program OR
literature reviews on the educational use of programming. programming) AND (Scratch) AND (school OR k-12)
Although we could not find studies with the same goals, we
discovered some reviews with similarities that have served as This string was executed during the month of January 2015
a starting point and inspiration. in international online databases, such as IEEE XPLORE,
ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, ERIC or
Grover and Pea [13] explain in their literature review on Wilson Education, and in tools like SCOPUS and Google
Computational Thinking in K-12 that although the idea of Scholar, restricting the search to peer-reviewed papers, writ-
programming as a means to teach other subjects was studied in ten in English and published since 2007, the release date of
the 80s and 90s with the Logo programming language and its Scratch.
potential was demonstrated, it should be re-investigated using
new visual programming languages. Lye and Koh [14], in After performing these searches, 107 articles were found,
their literature review on learning Computational Thinking which were analyzed to determine whether they would be
through programming, analyzed 9 papers in which coding was finally included in the review. In order to decide which papers
incorporated into the K-12 curriculum in subjects such as to include, the following exclusion criteria were used:
mathematics and English, and identify the need to carry out
more research in schools. Finally, Benitti [15] conducted a
systematic literature review to explore the educational
potential of robotics in K-12 which, after analyzing 10 papers,
concludes that empirical evidence to defend the educational
effectiveness of using robotics is still limited.
Finally, beyond the scientific literature, it should be noted
the existence of the ScratchEd website, a portal maintained by
the Harvard Graduate School of Education. ScratchEd is a
repository of educational resources provided by teachers from
different countries and educational levels that share materials
to work on a variety of subjects through programming with
Scratch, such as arts, mathematics, music, science or social
studies, among others.
III. METHODOLOGY
To implement this review, we followed the procedure
depicted in ``Guidelines for performing systematic literature

4  http://scratch.mit.edu/statistics/    
Fig. 1: Systematic literature review process [17]
 1. Papers exclusively focused on computer science A. What K-12 subjects have used programming with Scratch
knowledge, or development of computational as an educational resource?
thinking or programming skills of the students who It is possible to find studies in the scientific literature that
participated in the study. describe how different subjects could be worked by
2. Conceptual articles or studies that do not provide developing various types of applications with Scratch. By
evidence of educational benefits. raising just a couple of examples, Calder et al. describe how
students use “geometric coordinates and concepts such as
3. Studies aimed at university students, outside the angle and length measurements” to program their games [18];
scope of K-12. Sanjanaashree et al. illustrate how to use coding with Scratch
4. Papers using other technologies such as robotics, or “to learn single sentence construction of secondary language
articles that dealt with topics outside this context. (English) through primary language (Tamil)” [19]. And
similarly, it is also possible to find articles in which, after an
5. Articles whose abstract is written in English but the experience that brings the world of programming to teachers,
rest of the paper is in another language. discover and visualize the educational potential that
6. Articles that could not be accessed. programming could have on their subjects, such as arts and
music [20].
Table I shows the number of papers excluded due to each
of these reasons. As can be seen, a significant percentage of However, with this review we aimed to summarize the
the excluded papers, about 40%, were considered out of scientific literature in which, in addition to using programming
context, as they address issues such as robotics, programming with Scratch to learn subjects other than ICT, the educational
with other tools like AppInventor or Logo, or they only impact of using this resource is measured in some way and
describe the goals of Scratch or how Scratch works. 30% of presents some kind of evidence to draw conclusions regarding
the articles that have not been included in our review use the usefulness of programming in K-12. So, of the 15 papers
Scratch in the K-12 environment, but they only study aspects selected for revision, 8 of them use programming as a tool to
related to programming, where coding is not integrated into learn some school subject different than ICT.
the curriculum of other subjects different than computer Table II summarizes the topic dealt in each of the papers.
science or ICT. Moreover, 7 of the excluded papers are not It includes a reference to each article, the grade or age of the
focused on the K-12 environment, as research is carried out participating students, the subject or area in which
with college students. We also excluded 7 papers that, even programming was used and the environment in which the
though focused on the educational benefits of programming in research was conducted. As can be seen, there are articles that
schools, do not provide evidence of those benefits, being study the impact of programming in STEM subjects like
conceptual papers. Two articles could not be included as only Mathematics [21, 22, 23] or Science [24, 25], but also in other
the abstract is written in English. Finally, three articles could contexts such as Arts [22], Writing [26, 27] or English as a
not be accessed (we even asked the authors to send us a copy, second language [28]. There also is a considerable diversity
without success). regarding the age (or grade) in which the studies are held,
Therefore, for this literature review we count with a final ranging from 8 to 18 years. Finally, most of the studies, 6 out
number 15 articles, in line with (actually, a little above) the of 8, were conducted within a school environment and
number of papers studied in the systematic literature reviews therefore integrating programming within the curriculum and
referred in Section II [13, 14, 15]. the dynamics of schools; only 2 investigations were developed
as extracurricular activities.
IV. FINDINGS
TABLE II. SUBJECTS LEARNED THROUGH CODING WITH SCRATCH
In this section we summarize the findings of the papers
selected for this review with regard to the research questions
Paper Age Subject Environment
of the paper.
[21] Middle School Mathematics School
TABLE I. SUMMARY OF ARTICLE EXCLUSION [22] 5th grade Mathematics, English- Summer camp
Language Arts
[23] 3rd grade Mathematics School
Motive of exclusion Number of articles
Focused on programming 32 [24] 5th grade Science School

No evidence provided 7 [25] 5th grade Science School

University students 7 [26] 10-14 years old Storytelling, Creative After school
writing
Out of context 41
[27] 12-14 years old Writing School
No English version 2
[28] 4th-5th grade English as a second School
Articles not accessed 3 language
 TABLE III. CODING WITH SCRATCH TO IMPROVE OTHER SUBJECTS

Control Participants Data

Paper Description Duration Sample Proved results Non-proved results
Group selection Recollection
In-field
observation, Significantly more
Computer game design 64
interviewing, positive attitudes
[21] to foster mathematical 6 weeks middle No Random
pre and post towards mathematics
thinking schoolers
mathematics after game making
attitudes survey
Could not reject the null
Programming course Test scores in hypothesis that students’
Standardized
to detect correlations mathematics were highly scores on the English-
12 days, 47 fifth Test Scores,
[22] between coding skills No Volunteers correlated with Language Arts were not
36 hours graders Programming
and mathematics and performance on the correlated with their
Quizzes
arts grades programming quizzes performance on coding
quizzes
Game design to Improvements at
identify and construct 49 third identifying-comparing No differences at spatial
[23] 2 weeks Yes Tests
numerical sequences graders numbers and establishing location
within Scratch order
Students’
archived games,
transcripts of
Programming
pre and post How or if learners
computer games with 10 fifth
[24] 21 days No interviews, deepened their science
Scratch about graders
observations knowledge
environmental science
and field notes,
and journal
entries
Effectiveness of using 61.5% reported they had
96 fifth Study
[25] Scratch programming 15 weeks No a better understanding of
graders questionnaire
in science learning science content
How writing computer
programs can help 11
60% indicated they felt
children develop their students,
[26] 6 weeks No Volunteers Surveys their storytelling abilities
storytelling and 10-14
were improved
creative writing years old
abilities
Field Scratch is an effective
Study overlap between 10
observation, framework for
programming and students,
[27] 7 weeks No Volunteers video recording, facilitating middle
writing through the 12-14
artifact analysis, school children’s digital
storytelling years old
and interviews composition
Measure to what
extent the use of Groups working with
computer programming activities
programming in improved more than the
English classes can be Pre and post groups using traditional
[28] 1 month 65 Yes School groups
an interesting tests, surveys resources. Most students
educational tool with a felt that coding was a
positive impact on the positive influence for
learning outcome of learning English
the students

B. Is programming with Scratch a good educational tool that participants, methods for collecting data and evidence, results
enhances student learning? that were proved by research, and results that could not be
Table III shows a summary of the articles selected for this proved with the study.
review. For each article the table includes following Analyzing the selected papers, as can be seen in table III, only
information: paper reference, a general description of the two studies [23, 28] use a control group to compare the results
study, study duration, sample characteristics in relation to their obtained by the experimental group, and only in one of the
size and age, use or not of a control group, method to select
articles participants have been selected randomly [21]. C. What other skills are developed while learning to code
Moreover, the sample sizes are very small, since in all cases with Scratch?
the number of participants was lower than 100. Taking into The creators of Scratch argue that when children learn to
consideration the methods used for collecting evidence, four program with this tool, “in addition to learning mathematical
of the articles [22, 23, 26, 25] only take data once the and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals),
intervention is completed, three studies [21, 24, 28] make one they are also learning strategies for solving problems,
prior collection and another afterwards, and one research [27], designing projects, and communicating ideas.” [1], so they
collects evidence, besides the final data, during the study. develop “design strategies (such as modularization and
Finally, focusing on the instruments used for data iterative design) that carry over to non-programming domains”
collection, only three of the papers [22, 23, 28] use tests to [5]. Therefore one of the objectives of this review is to try to
assess the knowledge acquired by the participating students, discover whether there are scientific studies that underpin
while two articles were limited to use surveys [26, 25]. Three these claims.
studies [21, 24, 27] make use of some sort of in-field Table IV collects the synthesis of the conclusions of the
observation, interviews and products analysis. papers selected for this review. In relation to the types of
Taking into account the recommendations that Cohen, investigations, and taking again into account the
Manion and Morrison outline in their book ``Research recommendations of Cohen, Manion and Morrison on the
Methods in Education”, the summary presented in this review methods to conduct research in education [29], 4 out of 7
suggests, therefore, that it is necessary to develop more studies analyzed papers use a control group to compare the results of
providing quantitative data obtained in experiments in which the experimental group, and 6 of the 7 articles use pre and post
both a control group and an experimental group of students tests to collect evidence of investigations. In addition, the
with similar characteristics are used, where the group sample of the studies exceeds 100 students in 3 of the articles,
assignments are randomly performed and data collection and is greater than 40 participants in 6 of the 7 investigations.
includes pre and post tests [29]. The results provided by the papers under study are very
Nevertheless, the results of the literature under study show promising and interesting, and seem to confirm the claims of
a very promising educational potential for programming with the Scratch development team. Thus, 5 of the articles confirm
Scratch in order to enhance learning in other subjects that are that students developed their problem solving skills after the
not related to ICT. In relation to mathematics, Ke [21] points investigation [30, 31, 32, 33, 25]. However, one of the articles
out that participants in his research showed a significantly states that no significant differences were detected in this
more positive attitude towards this discipline after having regard, although there were differences in the self-confidence
developed games with Scratch, Lewis and Shah show the in the problem solving ability [34]. Moreover, Giordano and
correlation between programming quizzes and math tests Maiorana claim that students also improved reasoning
grades [22], and Zavala, Gallardo and Garcia-Ruiz detect practices [33]; Gupta, Tejovanth and Murthy indicate
improvements in the identification and comparison of improvements in logic, creativity and learning skills [35]; and
numbers, as well as the establishment of order between finally, Lai and Lai detected a better performance in logical
numbers, although no improvements in relation to the spatial thinking [25].
location were observed [23]. Regarding science, Lai and Lai
affirm that more than 60% of study participants indicated that V. CONCLUSIONS
after having made games with Scratch that dealt with contents This study has presented a systematic literature review of
of the science class, they had a better understanding of the scientific publications on the use of computer programming
concepts of the subject [25]; however, Baytak and Land did with Scratch as an educational tool that enhances learning out-
not prove whether students in their work acquired greater comes of subjects not related with ICT, and that allows to
knowledge of science, although the authors recognize that the develop other skills and capabilities beyond coding skills. The
objectives of their research was more exploratory than aim of this review is to make a synthesis of the most important
conclusive [24]. In relation to writing and storytelling, Burke findings that could be used to identify possible priorities for
and Kafai show that 60% of the participants in their study future research.
indicated that their storytelling skills had improved [26], while
In relation to programming integration into the curriculum,
Burke affirms that programming with Scratch is a framework
the 8 analyzed studies have a very promising outlook, as they
that facilitates storytelling and digital composition of students
show that programming can be a tool to improve learning
in middle school [27]. Regarding English-Language Arts,
subjects like mathematics, science, arts, writing or English as
Lewis and Shah could not reject the null hypothesis that
a second language. However, these studies did not follow, in a
students’ scores on the English- Language Arts were not
majority, the basic recommendations to develop research in
correlated with their performance on coding quizzes [22].
education, and it seems clear that more empirical studies
Finally, Moreno-León and Robles report that groups working
providing quantitative data to obtain clearer conclusions are
with programming activities improved more than groups using
necessary.
traditional resources, and that most students felt that coding
was a positive influence for learning English [28]. Regarding the development of other skills, the conclusions
of the 7 articles analyzed show that by learning to program,
students improved their problem solving skills, reasoning
practices, logical thinking and creativity. In this case,
furthermore, research was performed in a majority of the cases Therefore, although the findings of the analyzed articles
using control groups, pre and post tests, and a larger number present a very promising picture, it is necessary to conduct
of participants.
TABLE IV. SKILLS DEVELOPED BY CODING WITH SCRATCH

Control Participants Data

Paper Description Duration Sample Proved results Non-proved results
Group selection Recollection
Pre and post
Effectiveness of using Better performance in
96 fifth logical thinking
[25] Scratch programming 15 weeks No logical thinking and
graders and problem
in science learning problem solving
solving tests
Students in the treatment
Using Scratch as an group show
113 5th Pre and post
environment to Schools improvement in their
[30] 1 month and 6th Yes problem solving
strengthen students’ groups problem solving skills at
graders tests
problem solving skills a rate greater than those
in the control group
Improved problem-
Problem Based 91 solving ability for
Learning course with students, Pre and post Mathematics gifted and
12 Certification
[31] Scratch. Design 2nd year Yes tests, average students.
sessions test
scenario about high questionnaires Students learning
computer viruses school motivation showed
significant improvement
Effect of programming
Pre and post The effect on problem-
with Scratch on the
130 6th problem solving solving abilities is No significant effect on
[32] learners’ problem- 1 term Yes School groups
graders and logical significant, especially at logical reasoning skills
solving abilities and
reasoning tests the reason of prediction
logical reasoning skills
CS course to improve 28
Improved problem
problems solving skills students, Pre and post
[33] 2 terms No School groups solving skills and
and reasoning 14-16 exams, surveys
reasoning practices
practices years old
Effect of Scratch
Increase in self- No significant
programming on 49 5th Pre and post
[34] 5 weeks No School group confidence in problem differences in problem
students’ problem graders tests
solving ability solving skills
solving skills
Elementary 150
Series of Increase in logic,
programming and students,
[35] work- Yes School group Test creativity and learning
hardware interfacing 15-18
shops skills
course years old

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
further research with larger samples to justify the use of
programming as an educational tool in K-12. Thus we would
be laying the groundwork for educational officials to modify
existing curricula, avoiding the possibility that, as it already
happened in the 90s, after years of success and media
coverage, computer programming could disappear again of the The work of both authors has been funded in part by the
educational landscape. Region of Madrid under project “eMadrid - Investigación y
Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad
At this moment we are in the process of performing a broader
de Madrid” (S2013/ICE-2715).
systematic literature review, as we are not restricting the
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