Increasing motivation of informatics vocational education students in Angola via Scratch

Abstract

Vocational education is an educational field with specific characteristics, both from the demographic and educational perspectives, with students frequently experiencing low motivation levels. As motivation and emotions are well-known factors for effective learning, they also are key to success in informatics vocational education in general and in programming learning in particular. In this paper, we present an initiative aimed at enhancing students’ motivation and emotions in a vocational education informatics degree in Angola, based on a change in the introductory programming course from pseudocode and flowcharts to block-based programming, using Scratch. The change was conducted by consulting and training teachers in the new language, as well as by introducing the changes necessary in the course syllabus, materials and activities. The experience involved 221 students and 3 teachers over two academic years. We present data gathered regarding teachers’ acceptance of the change, as well as of its impact on students’ motivation and emotions. Students’ motivation and emotions were scored by means of the validated scales SIMS and PANAS, respectively. Notably, motivation and positive emotions increased along the current academic year, where Scratch was applied, in contrast to the last year, where pseudocode was applied. Moreover, negative emotions were reduced. These initial results are a stimulus for conducting additional efforts focused on different parts of the course didactics.