Ready To Learn: Study of Computational Thinking Resource for Prekindergarten-aged Children

• In Event: Evaluating Student Learning Through Innovative Digital Curricula

Abstract

This presentation describes a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the impact of public-media resources designed to support Prekindergarten-aged children’s problem solving, social-emotional learning (SEL), and computational thinking (CT) skills. The study is designed to meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards, Version 5.0, (WWC, 2022).

Ready To Learn is a federally funded program that promotes school readiness through the development and dissemination of high-quality educational media freely accessible through public television broadcast and web distribution, as well as through streaming services reaching more than 15 million monthly users. For the 2020–2025 Ready To Learn initiative, the U.S. Department of Education invited applicants to produce content that introduces young learners to future career and workforce options, including the “education, skills and age-appropriate tools needed for those career or workforce options.” (Department of Education, 2020, p. 14931). The public media resources included as the intervention in this study focus on computational thinking, a problem-solving approach that leverages concepts from computer science.

Children living in low-income households are the target audience for Ready To Learn programming. 450 children from low-income households-- defined as those with annual incomes less than $80,000 or those that are eligible for state or federal means-tested programs (e.g., SNAP, TANF, free and reduced-price lunch, CHIP, and public or Section 8 housing) -- participated in the study. Participants were recruited from several geographic regions across the U.S.: the Boston area, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

This presentation will cover study design challenges including approaches to minimize attrition, addressing possible over alignment between intervention content and assessment instruments, reliable approaches to measuring media (video and game) use and engagement, and computational thinking assessment administration with 5-year-old children.

Researchers will share details of intervention design findings from qualitative data collection reflecting parent perspectives on study experiences and computational thinking content.

A subset of parents within the treatment group were asked to participate in a brief interview at the end of the study. Interviewers asked parents to describe their child’s experience using the study resources during the study, and whether they thought their child had learned anything from the experience. One finding was parents report that children used skills they learned from the media to problem-solve in their everyday lives.

This presentation will be relevant to any researchers concerned with designing and implementing studies of how digital resources can be used to support learning in informal contexts and will offer detailed information about study design and implementation. The presentation will also provide guidance for educators exploring ways to engage young children in developmentally appropriate computational thinking practices. Researchers will also describe the Ready To Learn Data Collection Tools Database that houses all assessments developed for Ready To Learn research from 2009 to the present, and is free and available to all educators and researchers.

Author

• Naomi Hupert, Education Development Center, Inc.