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Background: The present study analyses the design of programming literacy in the sixth grade of Primary Education, starting from the use of simple activities with visual block‐based programming, through Scratch, and progressively linking difficulty to the use of the Unity engine, and the C# language, with simple activities identical to those created in Scratch. Objectives: This research aims to evaluate future teachers' abilities and attitudes regarding programming and its educational possibilities. We intend to evaluate the viability of a teaching proposal that combines a visual block‐based programming environment and a more advanced one, based on C#. Method: In the settings of two public Spanish universities, we analyse the possibilities in the training of future teachers who are studying for a degree in Primary Education Teaching and a degree in Pedagogy. Based on a test and three scales, descriptive data and statistical inference are detailed through a quasi‐experimental design with a Student's t‐test in the first dimension, and a Wilcoxon test in the second dimension. Results: The participants improved their performance and attitudes towards programming with the intervention of the study in the use of coding. Conclusions: It can be concluded that coding is essential in teacher training, and that a greater presence of programming training in higher education is essential. The benefits are visible in the pedagogical approach of coding related to creativity, innovation, motivation, an active approach and interest, highlighting the fact that the implementation of visual block‐based programming by blocks and engines is feasible in Elementary Education. The training proposal—provided by appropriate progression, selection, and sequencing of content—fosters basic and practical teacher training, and this can be defined as an apt training solution. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Visual Programming Language (Scratch) provides benefits in educational contextsEducational Technology in classroom provides motivation and encouragement.Active methods and interactions are interesting and beneficial to elementary school students What this paper adds: Visual programming and game engine are feasible in Elementary Education, detailing significant improvements regarding academic outcomesWe found benefits in this pedagogical approach related to creativity, innovation, motivation, active approach and interest. Implications for practice and/or policy: Due to the benefits and positive results obtained in this research it is recommended to implement Visual Programming LanguageWe recommend the introduction to engine in educational settings in 6th grade in primary education though a cross‐curricular implementation.We recommend to apply an active approach, innovation, and learning computational concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the increased attention and interest related to the application of virtual reality with head‐mounted displays in education, this study examined the elementary students' perceptions of using immersive virtual field trips (VFTs) in the classroom. Reflection papers from 25 students were analyzed and triangulated with field notes from class observations and teacher interviews. The content analysis revealed that VFTs were perceived to be efficient with regard to time and cost, to expand learning opportunities, but lacked physical interaction. Elementary students also suggested immersive VFTs are engaging, real, and provide an increased perception of virtual presence. However, they also expressed concerns about health and safety, psychological side effects, technical malfunctions, and low social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art education in public elementary schools is generally assigned fewer teaching hours and resources relative to other academic subjects, which has generated concerns about insufficient nurturing of artistic creativity and esthetic sensibility among elementary-school students. This study involved the development of a Web-based tool, named e Painting that facilitates art creation by elementary-school children. A preliminary experimental investigation examined the learning attitudes of students toward overall art creation immediately after using e Painting and the impact on their paper-based art creation at 4 weeks after free-choice learning of e Painting. The results revealed that the overall and paper-based art creation learning attitudes of students were both significantly enhanced after using e Painting. The improvement was greatest among males and those with initially poor-to-moderate learning attitudes toward paper-based art creation. The described results provide useful insights for the further development of teaching strategies and learning content based on the use of new technologies for enhancing art creation learning in schools. We have demonstrated that using the e Painting digital art creation tool as a supplemental free-choice resource is useful for learning traditional paper forms of art creation as well as for enhancing overall learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a synthesis of research evidence around teaching light to primary and secondary school pupils as part of the Institute of Physics Promoting and Interpreting Physics Education Research (PIPER) project. Conceptual change literature describes many of the difficulties young people can have understanding the phenomenon of light, and this knowledge can be useful in the classroom. Pupil–teacher dialogue is used to illustrate some of the pedagogical challenges teachers face in this topic. This paper also highlights the range of influences on pupils from everyday life and from the classroom, with a view to promoting teacher awareness of conceptual change research evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the fundamental importance of achieving quality implementation when assessing the impact of social and emotional learning interventions. Recent findings in implementation science are reviewed that include a definition of implementation, its relation to programme outcomes, current research on the factors that affect implementation, and a framework for understanding the steps, actions and challenges involved in achieving quality implementation. Examples from the social and emotional learning literature are used to illustrate different issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) paper on reasserting the role of motivation and interest in children's academic achievement. The paper redefines learning and challenges assumptions about the role of motivation in learning. It focuses on incentives used to motivate learning and offers research-based recommendations on how to build motivation and interest in students.

This paper aims to investigate how a gamified learning approach influences science learning, achievement and motivation, through a context-aware mobile learning environment, and explains the effects on motivation and student learning. A series of gamified learning activities, based on MGLS (Mobile Gamification Learning System), was developed and implemented in an elementary school science curriculum to improve student motivation and to help students engage more actively in their learning activities. The responses to our questionnaire indicate that students valued the outdoor learning activities made possible by the use of a smartphone and its functions. Pre- and post-test results demonstrated that incorporating mobile and gamification technologies into a botanical learning process could achieve a better learning performance and a higher degree of motivation than either non-gamified mobile learning or traditional instruction. Further, they revealed a positive relationship between learning achievement and motivation. The correlation coefficient for ARCS dimensions and post-test shows that the ARCS-A (attention) is greater than ARCS-R, ARCS-C and ARCS-S. This means that the attention (ARCS-A) of this system is an important dimension in this research. The results could provide parents, teachers and educational organizations with the necessary data to make more relevant educational decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have analyzed social and dimensional comparisons simultaneously in order to consider their impact on students' academic self-concept (e.g., Chiu, 2012 ). Thereby, social comparisons refer to comparisons with the achievement level of students' classmates, whereas dimensional comparisons comprise comparisons between students' individual achievements across different domains. This paper analyzes whether both achievement comparisons influence students' subject-interest in mathematics and English (as a first foreign language). The analyses are based on N = 1390 German fifth and sixth grade students who participated in the BiKS-8-14 longitudinal study. Using multi-level analyses, results indicate that students' competences influence their mathematical and English subject-interests, demonstrating the typical pattern of social and dimensional comparisons. Further, analyses reveal mediation effects by subject-specific grades and self-concepts. These findings also apply for the development of students' subject-interest from grade 5 to grade 6. Results are discussed with respect to their implications concerning theories of achievement comparisons and interest development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of a reform movement in statistics education has influenced the teaching and learning of statistics over the past few decades. The teaching of statistics concepts and courses in elementary and secondary education as well as the implementation of technology into the statistics classroom are important changes involved in this movement. Considering the changes in instruction and learning over the past few years, the purpose of this paper was to describe the attitudes of students enrolled in a reformed course. Although previous research has suggested that student attitudes toward statistics have been negative, the overall results suggested that students in introductory statistics courses today have more positive attitudes toward statistics than negative. Important variables related to statistics achievement such as mathematics ability, statistics experience, student confidence, and gender continue to influence student attitudes. Implications from the findings of this study might suggest that the collaborative effort from researchers and teachers to improve the teaching and learning of statistics over the past few years reveals optimistic results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]