The Future of Education

In recent years, the global prioritisation of STEM education has highlighted the need to equip students with the skills necessary to thrive in a rapidly changing, technology-driven world (STEMerg 2016). Ireland is no exception to this trend, launching a draft primary STEM curriculum in 2024 (NCCA 2024), with the finalised version expected later this year. Central to this new curriculum is the integration of computational thinking as a core competency. This study investigates how computational thinking can be effectively developed in primary school students through a Scratch programming initiative. Conducted with sixty-seven students across 3rd, 5th, and 6th classes in an Irish primary school, the research employed a variety of data collection methods to capture the multidimensional nature of computational thinking (e.g. questionnaires, artefact analysis, artefact-based interviews, observation diary). Brennan and Resnick’s (2012) framework which encompasses computational concepts, practices, and perspectives was employed as an analytical lens. The findings revealed strengths in student understanding of concepts such as synchronisation and parallelism, while exposing challenges with more complex concepts like conditional loops variables. Furthermore, the study provides insight into how computational practices and perspectives, aspects of computational thinking that are less well-defined in existing literature, can emerge in a primary classroom context. These insights offer valuable guidance for educators and policymakers as they work to embed computational thinking meaningfully within their STEM curricula.