The effect of original and task-designed programming tools on students' academic achievements, attitudes and computational thinking skills in programming education

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of original and task-based programming tools used in programming education on middle school students' academic achievement, attitudes toward programming, and computational thinking skills. The study was conducted in the second semester of the 2023–2024 academic year with 6th-grade students at a public middle school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Ceyhan, Adana. A non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used. The study group consisted of a total of 90 students, divided equally into experimental group1, experimental group2, and a control group, each containing 30 students. During the application process, experimental group1 was taught using the original design block-based programming tool Scratch, experimental group2 was taught using the task-based programming tool Code.org, and the control group received programming education through traditional instructional tools (presentations, blackboard, printed materials). The implementation lasted for four weeks. Data were collected using the Programming Skills Academic Achievement Test (PBABT), the Attitude Scale Toward Programming Education (KEYTÖ), and the Self-Efficacy Perception Scale Toward Computational Thinking Skills (BİDÖYAÖ). The data obtained were analyzed with MANOVA using SPSS. The results showed that the group educated with the original design programming tool (Scratch) in experimental group1 performed significantly better than both the task-based programming tool (Code.org) group (experimental group2) and the control group in terms of academic achievement in programming skills, attitudes toward programming education, and computational thinking skills. Experimental group2, which used the task-based programming tool, showed higher academic achievement and more positive attitudes than the control group; however, no significant difference was found in computational thinking skills. Keywords: Programming, Computational Thinking, Attitude, Academic Achievement