Building pictures from shapes made coding lessons no more fun than steering a turtle

The study

1. 01

   Who took part

   145 students who volunteered from a first-term programming course at a university in Finland, about 22 on average and about half women. Most had little coding experience; 70 got the shapes lessons and 75 the turtle lessons.

2. 02

   What they did

   In one supervised session of about an hour, students worked alone through four short Python lessons. Step by step, they drew a street of houses. One group built the pictures from shapes; the other drew them by steering a turtle that moves and turns on screen.

3. 03

   What happened

   Students in both groups found the lessons about equally interesting and fun, and equally wanted to learn more. Both groups rated the lessons highly. Parts of the paper's text are garbled, but its tables are readable.

What the study found

1. No difference

   Students found coding pictures from shapes no more fun or interesting than steering a turtle on screen.

   Randomised trial of 145 first-year programming students in Finland · vs the same lessons with an on-screen turtle · they rated themselves · ⚠ numbers unreliable

Source