The Effect of Cognitive Styles and Guidance Strategies on Children’s Performance in Learning Programming

Abstract

This study aims to explore the impact of cognitive styles and guidance strategies on the learning effectiveness and attitude of primary school students learning programming design. With six-grade students as its subjects, this study employs the quasi-experimental research method of 2 x 2 factorial designs to study 106 valid samples. The independent variables are cognitive styles (FD vs. FI) and guidance strategies (question-guidance vs. completion problem-guidance), while dependent variables are learning effectiveness and attitude. This study finds that (1) in terms of the learning effectiveness of programming design, the FI cognitive style group is more effective than the FD group in applying the program acquired during the project assignment, whereas the completion problem-guidance group scored higher than the question-guidance group; (2) in terms of program learning attitude, the completion problem-guidance group holds a more positive attitude towards the benefit of learning programming design than the question-guidance group. It is suggested that future studies target the analysis of programming design strategy and problem-solving behavior, to further explore the thinking process of learners.