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Comment by jerluc | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know of any published research on the efficacy of this "block based programming" standard the author mentions? I can't seem to find anything on the subject in the Scratch website's "Research" section (https://scratch.mit.edu/info/research/), and in their early papers they simply list it as a "core feature" rather than explaining why they use blocks in the first place.

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I've been a CodeDojo and Scratch mentor for a few years and, although I haven't read much of the research, block-based programming fills a great niche for kids that know how to read, but have a hard time typing. Typing and syntax issues hinder the experience for very young children learning to code.

Scratch allows children to learn computational thinking concepts through a creative computing experience. Keeping it simple and focusing on the creative aspect of programming is a major emphasis of Mr. Resnick's team at the Lifelong Kindergarten Group.

The kids that choose to continue with programming eventually reach a wall with Scratch, where the block-based aspect breaks down. At which point they are ready for syntax-based languages. However, it's amazing how complex some of the featured projects are on the Scratch website with regards to both art and logic.

Ah that's a good point that both you and scottcha make regarding the typing strengths/weaknesses of children, which would make a typing-based approach maybe non-practical. I guess more generally what I was trying to better understand was whether or not the use of these fitted blocks (as I understand Scratch to do) has been studied enough to be considered more fruitful in developing an understanding of rudimentary programming rather than a more free-form way of doing so (maybe just blocks that can be combined in any way, even if they don't work as intended). Maybe said a slightly different way: why did MIT researchers choose to use a "coloring in the lines" method (which may hinder creativity and potentially interest)?

From my experience and interactions with the LLK group at MIT, they have been very careful to position Scratch as a creative, story-telling tool, where the connecting of blocks is just one form of expression. Making your creations come to life through art and logic and sharing with the community is at the core of the Scratch. You actually won't find the words "coding" or "programming" on the homepage (https://scratch.mit.edu/). I find that any understanding of rudimentary programming tends to be side-effect of trying to make things work :-)

Here are a few good links that might help.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/12/11/458782056/a-kids-c...

Mitch Resnick's TED talk from 2012: https://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_...

In my experience in using this with my Daughter (age 7) I think the main efficacy of blocks comes from making it easier for kids who don't know how to type to use the basic programming concepts we are used to (nesting, loops, conditionals). What other aspects of efficacy are you thinking should be considered?

I mentored a CoderDojo group for Scratch, AppInventor and HTML/JS for a year (two years ago, so details are a little blurry now) and in my humble opinion the "boxes" or "blocks" are not that good. Not because the idea is bad, but because the implementation is terrible.

It's true that children have a hard time typing, but it's not because they can't type fast. The reason is that they don't know how to delete, navigate using keys, or what tab and intro are supposed to do.

The boxes are painful to manage. The only advantage is that they can use them with the mouse, that they seem to be much more familiar than with the keyboard.

Some pitfalls:

* Not obvious what kind of item should go in every placeholder.

* You need to learn in what tab page is every kind of item.

* As soon as the program is bigger than a simple proof of concept, it's difficult to read, understand or modify.

* There is some model for moving stuff around the screen that it's not very intuitive and you can't easily choose an alternative.

* The event model is probably not what a beginner should start with.

A better approach would be to use the keyboard, at least to do the same as with the mouse. Every pro knows that keyboard is way better. Don't let the cursor go out of boxes maybe. I've sit on the idea of making such an editor in JS for a year... anytime soon :-)

Oh and BTW, the children did just fine with JavaScript, once they learned keyboard basics.

Because children too young to even type their own name on a login screen can still understand and do block-based visual programming.

So, no I don't know of formal research - but that answer is the experience shared with me by teachers who are working with 5 year olds on these concepts.

There seem to be a few studies like this that have evaluated scratch over the course of 10 classes, but they've been largely inconclusive beyond the "general enjoyment" factor - http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/wilson-...

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