Coding in early years education: which factors influence the skills of sequencing and plotting a route, and to what extent?

Abstract

Significant interest in teaching children to code since Preschool Education has arisen in recent years. This paper focuses on the benefits of preschoolers learning to code at such short age. The research questions are whether by coding they can improve skills such as sequencing and plotting a route? Which factors influence the learning? And, to what extent? To start coding, preschoolers might use robots such as Cubetto or KIBO, or other unplugged resources such as foam. Moreover, stories could be used to provide a context and a goal for the coding experience. An experiment was carried out with 192 children between 3 and 6 years old in age to gather some data. The hypothesis that the skills were improved by coding was proved; and that age, resources, and initial knowledge influence the learning process. This paper contributes more evidence of the benefits of coding in early years.