The effect of activities designed with coding on students' academic achievement, course attitudes and spatial thinking skills in primary school social sciences course

Nowadays, it is considered important to provide coding education to students from an early age as it prepares students for life, helps them to become productive individuals rather than consuming individuals, and provides the development of many skills. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of activities designed with Scratch program on students' academic achievement, attitudes towards the course and spatial thinking skills in the learning area of "People, Places and Environments" in primary school social studies course. In this study, a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was used. The study group of the research consists of a total of 82 4th grade students studying in three branches in a primary school in Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul in the 2023-2024 academic year. The social studies course of the students in the experimental group was conducted with Scratch-supported activities. Achievement test, Social Studies Course Attitude Scale and Spatial Thinking Skill Test were used to collect the data. The information obtained as a result of the research was analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 program. The findings obtained at the end of the research showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in terms of the effect of Scratch-supported activities on academic achievement, attitude towards the course and spatial thinking skills in favor of the experimental group. It was determined that the academic achievement, attitude towards the course and spatial thinking skills of the experimental group students whose social studies course was carried out with the support of the Scratch program developed positively. It is thought that the use of Scratch coding program in social studies course will contribute to students' academic achievement, attitude towards the course and spatial thinking skills.