Programming in Comprehensive School: a Follow Up of the Government's Implementation of the Digitalization Strategy

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Bachelor Degree Project

Programming in comprehensive school: a follow up of the

government's implementation of the digitalization strategy

Author: Gustav Landin Supervisor: Tobias Andersson Gidlund

Semester: VT 2021

Subject: Computer Science

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Abstract

The Swedish government decided in 2017 that Sweden should be the best country in the world to use the benefits of digitalization, and concluded that education plays a huge role in reaching their vision. From autumn semester 2022 text-based programming will be a mandatory part (in mathematics, grade 7-9) in Sweden. Previous research shows that many teachers feel uncomfortable teaching programming and that text-based programming has a steep learning curve. This leads us to check if there are gaps to fill in the software provided for educational purposes available today. To get an overview of the current situation a survey using questionnaires was conducted. To what extent had the teachers used the tools and resources recommended by the Swedish National Agency for Education, to develop their skills within text-based programming? How did the view differ for teachers on using complements to the tools and resources provided by the Swedish National Agency for education today, based on their characteristics?

Very few teachers had used the available material and tools, or had the time needed to develop their skills to feel comfortable teaching text-based programming. Most of the teachers within the survey would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful.

Keywords: software architecture, educational software, educational tools, digitalization, text-based programming

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1 Introduction

This is a 15 HEC Bachelor thesis in Computer Science. The reason for writing this thesis is to investigate the government's implementation of the digitalization strategy in comprehensive schools in Sweden, with a focus on the software used by teachers when learning how to teach text-based programming.

According to Statistics Sweden (in Swedish, Statistiska Centralbyrån, SCB) there is currently a lack of software developers, and the estimation is that the supply will not keep up with the increasing demand within the coming five years [1]. The Swedish government decided in 2017 that Sweden should be the best country in the world to use the benefits of digitalization, and concluded that education plays a huge role in reaching their vision. This led to a national strategy of digitalization [2].

The government concluded that programming in preschool needs to be a part of the education in comprehensive school. The government also concluded that many students have access to a computer, but that it is the teachers' digital knowledge and skills that will make the students reach the expected level of digital competence [3]. Today programming is part of both math and technology as subjects. The Swedish National Agency for Education will make a revision on the plans for both mathematics and technology, starting from autumn semester 2022. In these new plans, it is clarified that text-based programming is a mandatory part of the mathematical skills that should be learned when finishing comprehensive school [4], [5].

In April 2020 the Swedish National Agency for Education made a follow up of the national strategy of digitalization. A conclusion from the report was that one out of four of the representatives of the principals, and one out of five of the representatives of the teachers, had no idea if the principals or teachers had the necessary skills or needed more development within digital competence, to be able to reach their goals [6]. A recent survey also showed that seven out of ten teachers feel that their programming isn’t sufficient enough to teach it properly [7]. This makes it very interesting to explore to what extent the teachers have used the material provided for them today, to develop their skills within text-based programming, as well as their needs for complements to the tools and resources provided. Could this overview lead to software-related opportunities that could speed up the teachers' learning process in order to get the necessary skills needed to fulfil their goals, and feel comfortable with teaching text-based programming?

1.1 Background

The way society works and especially how people work has changed a lot over the last twenty years, and the trend seems to continue in the same direction. The digital economy is the most important engine of innovation, which will be a competitive advantage for the country that is early to adapt to new digital challenges [8].

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The global talent shortage has almost doubled compared to a decade ago and the nordic countries are ranked high among the best countries for business. This has increased the number of investments in Sweden which led to an even greater demand for people with IT-skills. Sweden is one of the most pressured labour markets, and the gap between skills demanded and the skills that are available on the market is at record high levels. It is expected that 70 000 unfilled digital roles will hit Sweden in 2022, this accounts for 4% of the European digital skills shortage. One of the main reasons for the software developer shortage in Sweden is the inability of the education system to adapt to the current market needs [9]. In a projection made by the Swedish Public Employment Service, they list the ten jobs with the biggest gap between demand and supply in Sweden by 2025. Three of them are civil engineer, system developer, and it-architect, jobs where IT-skills and problem solving is a part of the daily job [10].

After the government concluded that Sweden should be the best country in the world to use the benefits of digitalization, they didn’t have any text-based programming requirements in the educational plan. Since text-based programming will be a mandatory part of mathematics [5], there are now completely new challenges both for students and teachers compared to before, since they now have to learn how to code text-based programming.

Since text-based programming will not be mandatory until autumn semester 2022, it is fair to expect that many teachers have been using visual programming instead of text-based programming. To clarify, visual programming lets the user create programs by manipulating program elements graphically, instead of specifying them in text form as in text-based programming [11].

The Swedish National Agency for Education provides a course available on 5 HEC for teachers in mathematics, that is supposed to give sufficient skills to teach text-based programming [12]. There is also a course on 2,5 HEC that is supposed to give the teachers even deeper knowledge in text-based programming [13]. To be better prepared for these courses there is also an introduction to programming in general available, which is estimated to take 36 hours to complete. In this web course, they go through both how visual and text-based programming languages work [14]. 10, in a perfect world, of course every teacher should get the time needed to by themself sign up for these courses, but when looking at the fact that many representatives didn’t have any idea of the teacher’s skills, and 7 out of 10 teachers didn’t feel that they had the necessary skills to feel comfortable teaching programming, it is very hard to believe that 100% of the teachers also have signed up for these courses. This makes it interesting to find out different approaches that could be used to help teachers speed up their learning process, to become confident teaching text-based programming. Is a complement to the 5 and 2,5 HEC courses such as online courses, and/or courses that the teachers could use at their own pace something that the teachers themself would find useful? Do the teachers themself, who have taken the courses available on Swedish National Agency for Education, find that the courses lack or could get improved in some way?

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1.2 Related Work

Already in the beginning of the 1990-s research showed that in order for teachers to use computers as a part of their education, they were in need of good support and ability to increase their digital competence [15].

Previous studies have also shown that students using visual programming had a higher motivation to continue learning, compared to students who used text-based programming [16]. Another study is investigating what is the best way to start with programming. In this study they let students use both text-based programming languages and visual programming languages. They find that the text-based programs are not forgiving, and have a steeper learning curve. The text-based programming languages require more from the students to get meaningful results. With visual programming languages it is easier to get feedback, and it is also easier to solve a problem and prove the result. They find this to be a reason why text-based programming often leads to frustration among students, instead of a spurred interest [17].

Another study shows that a teacher's skill in a subject has an impact on the student’s performance. This makes it even more important to give the teacher the possibility to reach their desired knowledge within a subject, so they feel comfortable teaching it [18].

Another study that investigates the teacher’s digital competence, showed that after a teacher has completed their education, the teachers still don't have enough knowledge to get other students to be able to develop their skills in digital techniques. This makes it very unlikely that they got the skills needed to teach programming [19].

Programming has been a mandatory part of the education system in other countries such as England. The difference between Sweden and England on this matter is that in England, all schools and teachers had to enroll in a compulsory development program, to keep up with the new digital skills that were introduced. In Sweden it is clear that the digital competence that the teachers have when graduating, isn’t sufficient enough to reach the expected level in programming [20].

A study made in Bulgaria concluded that older teachers who didn’t have programming as part of their own education to become a teacher, didn’t either have the necessary skills to use digital tools and teach programming to students [21]. In the Netherlands the same pattern could be found where teachers within different subjects all lack sufficient knowledge to teach the new subject programming. Teachers who had previous experience in computer science met the requirements in a much higher grade.

Also the students' progress was dependent on the teacher’s knowledge within programming [22].

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1.3 Problem Statement

As we can see in previous research, the introduction of programming in school is a challenge due to many reasons. Studies show that the situation in Swedish schools is not optimal, since many teachers feel uncomfortable teaching programming. Many teachers do not have the time or motivation needed to take additional classes for learning how to program. When text-based programming from autumn 2022 is a mandatory part of the math subject, there will be even more skills for the teachers to learn to feel confident teaching the math subject. The scope of this study is limited towards teachers (in mathematics, grade 7-9) in Sweden. This leads us to the following research questions to check if there are there gaps to fill in the software provided for educational purposes for teachers (in mathematics, grade 7-9) in comprehensive schools in Sweden available today:

- To what extent have the teachers used the tools and resources recommended by the Swedish National Agency for Education, to develop their skills within text-based programming?

- How does the view differ for teachers (in mathematics, grade 7-9) on using complements to the tools and resources provided by the Swedish National Agency for education today, based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school and if they are qualified the teach mathematics or not?

1.4 Motivation

This thesis will advance in the field of educational software available to learn text-based programming for math teachers for comprehensive schools in Sweden, to find potential gaps in what is available on the market today. The results will address the current situation for math teachers in Sweden, now facing a new educational plan involving text-based programming as a compulsory part of their education from autumn 2022.

From an industrial perspective, the results will give developers a chance to create software tailored to fit the Swedish Government's vision of becoming the best country in the world to use the benefits of digitalization.

1.5 Results

The results will give an overview of the math teacher’s situation and possible gaps to fill for software developers within the field of educational software.

To get the overview, a non-formal discussion was made with teachers to get an overview of what questions could be useful in the survey. The survey collects data from math teachers in grades 7-9. The reason to use surveys instead of interviews is to focus on reliability and validity and getting the overall picture of the gap, instead of focusing

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on how a specific software solution could look. This in-depth detail of how the architecture of the software is more suited for a thesis with interviews as a method.

1.6 Scope/Limitation

A survey will be conducted towards teachers in math in grades 7-9, to get their view of potential gaps in the educational software provided for teachers when learning how to teach text-based programming. The study is limited to Sweden and aims to get 3 respondents from each county. The reason grade 7-9 was chosen was because text-based is a mandatory part of mathematics in comprehensive school from grade 7-9, and the teacher is required to know how to perform text-based programming.

1.7 Target Group

The target group of this thesis is software developers creating educational software for math teachers, with a focus on text-based programming in grades 7-9 in comprehensive schools in Sweden. By reading the results of this report, the target group gets material that could ease their work of creating an architecture of educational software that suits the governments and hence the market's needs.

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2 Method

To get an overview of the current situation in comprehensive schools for math teachers, a survey using questionnaires will be conducted. The reason for choosing this technique is because a larger sample size can be collected compared to interviews, which makes it possible to get more data than if we would use interviews as a technique. We aim to get 63 respondents to participate in the survey, which would equal 3 respondents per county. To estimate the scale of the population participating in this study, there are 104 000 teachers in comprehensive schools in Sweden according to Statistics Sweden (in Swedish, Statistiska Centralbyrån, SCB) [23]. Of these we estimate 33% of them teach for grades 7-9, and we estimate 20% of them to teach mathematics. This means that we will reach 63/(104000*0,33*0,2) which is 0,917% of the target population if we get 63 participants to participate in our survey. To reduce the risk of getting similar results from schools within the same county and municipality, we randomly pick schools from different counties and municipalities’ by reaching the municipalities’ web page available on SKR [24]. The survey was sent out with an even distribution among the counties in Sweden until we got 63 respondents which would equal 3 respondents per county. The fact that the survey is anonymous also increases the likelihood of getting a more honest response from the participants. The survey will be targeted towards math teachers in grades 7-9. The target group is selected from the fact that text-based programming is a mandatory part of mathematics and the teacher expects to know how to perform text-based programming when teaching mathematics in grade 7-9 [4], [5], [25]. The survey will have a quantitative approach, and the questions will have a focus to answer the questions if there are gaps to fill in the software provided for educational purposes for teachers available today. Google Forms will be used to create the survey, and the mail will be sent to schools teaching mathematics in grades 7-9. The email will be sent directly to the schools’ official email if possible, otherwise to the principal or teacher directly. The result will be processed in Google Sheets and presented in diagrams and tables to answer the purpose of the thesis.

2.1 Reliability and Validity

To reach a high level of reliability in this thesis, we use a quantitative questionnaire survey. This will make it possible for others to replicate the study in the future, to see if the situation has changed for the target group by using the same questionnaire. By using a sample size larger than what could be achieved with interviews, we will be able to get a statistically more accurate result. This makes it more possible to neglect individual opinions and to look at the target group as a whole. Since we got both private schools and schools run by the municipalities in Sweden, each respondent has to answer if they work for a private school or a school run by the municipality in the questionnaire. To increase the reliability and to be able to replicate it in the future, each respondent has to answer their age, how many years they have worked as a teacher, if they are certified according to the Swedish National Agency for Education[26], and also what their

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gender is. Since it’s voluntary to participate in the survey, we face the risk of undercoverage if only participants who like or do not like text-based becoming a part of the math subject are participating. This risk is reduced by letting the participants answer the question if they are positive or not to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a compulsory part of the math subject. By using a quantitative questionnaire with well-defined and precise questions, we will reach a high level of validity. To avoid ambiguity, the questions were discussed with three teachers not participating in the survey, to understand that they understood the questionnaire.

2.2 Ethical Considerations

The survey will be completely anonymous and no personal information is stored in line with GDPR. This is also clarified to the respondent when participating in the survey, to reduce the risk of participant’s not expressing their true opinions. It’s the participants choice to participate or not in this study. The participants also have to answer that they have understood their ethical rights by answering yes/no in the first question in the survey.

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3 Survey

The survey clearly states that it is voluntary to participate in the survey and that no personal information is stored and all data is confidential. The survey contains 13 questions. Google Forms was used to create the surveys and collect the data. The questions in the survey and explanations to them can be found in the appendix “survey questions translated”.

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4 Results

The survey was sent out to schools in Sweden with the approach described in the method section and 63 respondents participated in the survey. The question in the survey “Are you teaching mathematics for grade 7-9 students?” was to make sure that the correct target group was participating in the survey, hence all of the results presented below only concerns the participants answering the 63 participants answering yes on that question.

Below is the presentation of the geographical distribution of where the 63 respondents schools in the survey were based. This is followed by the result of the study, to answer the questions in the problem statement.

4.1 Geographical Distribution and Attitude

This section initially covers the complete survey showing the aggregated result of all the respondents participating in the survey, followed by the result on whether the respondent is positive to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part of mathematics or not.

Fig. 4.1.1. Showing the results of geographical distribution among all participants in the survey.

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Fig. 4.1.2. Showing the results of how many of the participants that is positive to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part of mathematics among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.1.2 it shows that 42,6% of the respondents were neutral to the question if the participants were positive to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part of mathematics. 26,2% of the respondents agreed and 19,7% disagreed.

8,2% strongly agreed while 3,3% strongly disagreed.

4.2 Usage of Tools and Resources to Learn Text-based Programming

This section covers the results of the question in the problem statement to investigate to what extent the teachers (of mathematics, grade 7-9) have used the tools and resources recommended by the Swedish National Agency for Education, to develop their skills within text-based programming.

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Fig. 4.2.1. Showing the results of how many of the respondents that have finished the 36-hour web course available for math teachers to learn the basics of programming among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.2.1 it shows that 63,5% of the participants had not finished the 36-hour web course available for math teachers to learn the basics of programming. 20,6% of the participants had finished and 15,9% had partially completed the course.

Fig. 4.2.2. Showing the results of how many of the respondents that have finished the 5 HEC course in basics of text-based programming among all participants in the survey.

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In Figure it shows that 93,7% of the participants had not finished the 5 HEC course in basics of text-based programming. 4,8% of the participants had partially completed the course while 1,6% had finished the course.

Fig. 4.2.3. Showing the results of how many of the respondents who feel that they got the time needed to learn how to perform text-based programming among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.2.3 it shows that 49,2% of the participants disagreed that they got the time needed to learn how to perform text-based programming while 31,7% strongly disagreed.

14,3% of the participants were neutral and 3,2% agreed. 1,6% of the participants strongly agreed.

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Fig. 4.2.4. Showing the results of how many of the participants who knew how to perform text-based programming before it was announced to be a mandatory part of mathematics among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.2.4 it shows that the largest group of 57,1% of the respondents strongly disagreed on the question of whether they knew how to perform text-based programming while 36,5% of the respondents disagreed. 3,2% were neutral and 3,2%

agreed. 0% of the respondents strongly agreed.

4.3 Complements to The Tools and Resources Provided

This section initially covers the distribution of all the participants in the survey based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school and if they are qualified to teach mathematics or not.

This is followed by a breakdown in section 4.3.1 to find out whether there are differences based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school, and if they are qualified to teach mathematics or not on using complements to the tools and resources provided by the Swedish National Agency for education today.

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Fig.4.3.1. Showing the results of gender distribution among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.3.1 it shows that 65,1% of the respondents were women. 34,9% of the respondents were men.

Fig. 4.3.2. Showing the results of age distribution among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.3.2 we can see that the largest age group of the respondents 30,2% was between the ages of 40-49 years old, followed by 23,8% which was between 50-59 years old. The third-largest age group representing 19,0% or respondents was between 30-39 years old. The second smallest age group 17,5% was between 60-69 years. The

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smallest group of respondents 9,5% was between 18-29 years old. 0% of the respondents belonged to the group of 70+ years.

Fig. 4.3.3. Showing the results of the distribution of years of experience among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.3.3 it shows that most of the respondents 30,2% had between 10-19 years of experience, followed by 25,4% which had between 20-29 years of experience. The third-largest group 20,6% had between 30-39 years of experience. The second smallest group had between 0-9 years of experience. The smallest group had between 40-49 years of experience. 0% of the respondents belonged to the 50+ years of experience group.

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Fig. 4.3.4. Showing the results of how many of the participants having a Swedish certification to teach mathematics among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.3.4 we can see that 79,4% of the respondents were qualified to teach math in Sweden according to the Swedish National Agency for Education. 20,6% of the respondents were not qualified.

Fig. 4.3.5. Showing the results of how many of the participants who are working for a municipal or private school among all participants in the survey.

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In Figure 4.3.5 it shows that 82,5% of the respondents worked for a municipal school, while 17,5% worked for a private school.

Fig. 4.2.4. Showing the results of how many of the respondents would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming among all participants in the survey.

In Figure 4.2.4 we can see that 60,3% of the participants agreed that complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful when learning text-based programming would be useful, while 31,7% strongly agreed. 4,8% of the participants were neutral, 1,6% disagreed and 1,6% strongly disagreed.

4.3.1 Breakdown of Characteristics

This section filters the different characteristics of the participants in the survey to get a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the gap, with a focus on the last question in the problem statement. This helps us connect to the motivation of this thesis, to give developers of educational software an in-depth detail of their target group.

Beneath follows a breakdown of how the participants would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming useful based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school and if they are qualified to teach mathematics or not within the target group that. The result shows the number of participants who have selected the specific grade within the likert-scale, followed by the percentage of the total of the specific characteristic.

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Gender

Strongly

disagree Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly agree

Man 0 (0%) 1 (4,5%) 0 (0%) 16 (72,7%) 5 (22,7%) Woman 1 (2,4%) 0 (0%) 3 (7,3%) 22 (53,7%) 15 (36,6%)

Table. 4.3.1.1. Showing the distribution between gender and if they would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming.

Table 4.3.1.1 shows that the majority of both women and men agree and strongly agree that they would find complements useful. More women 36,6% strongly agree than men 22,7%, while more men 72,7% agree compared to 53,7% women.

Age

Strongly

disagree Disagree Neutral Agree

18-29 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 3 (50%) 3 (50%) 30-39 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (8,3%) 8 (66,7%) 3 (25%) 40-49 years 1 (5,3%) 0 (0%) 1 (5,3%) 11 (57,9%) 6 (31,6%) 50-59 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (6,7%) 9 (60%) 5 (33,3%) 60-69 years 0 (0%) 1 (9%) 0 (0%) 7 (63,6%) 3 (27,3%)

Table. 4.3.1.2. Showing the distribution between age groups and if they would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming.

Table 4.3.1.2 shows that the majority of all age groups agree or strongly agree that they would find complements useful. 5,3%

Experience

Strongly

Strongly agree 0-9 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (54,5%) 5 (45,5%)

10-19 years 1 (5,3%) 0 (0%) 1 (5,3%) 14 (73,7%) 3 (15,8%) 20-29 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (6,3%) 7 (43,8%) 8 (50%) 30-39 years 0 (0%) 1 (8%) 1 (7,7%) 8 (61,5%) 3 (23,1%)

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40-49 years 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 3 (75%) 1 (25%)

Table. 4.3.1.3. Showing the distribution between years of experience groups and if they would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming.

Table 4.3.1.3 is showing that the majority of all groups of experience, either agree or strongly agree that they would find complements useful.

Certified

Strongly

No 1 (7,7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 10 (76,9%) 2 (15,4%) Yes 0 (0%) 1 (2%) 3 (6%) 28 (56%) 18 (36%)

Table. 4.3.1.4. Showing the distribution between respondents that have the Swedish certification to teach mathematics and if they would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming.

Comparing teachers with and without a Swedish certification to teach mathematics, we can see that a higher percentage of the ones that are certified strongly agrees that they would find complements useful. For the teachers who are not certified, there is 7,7%

who strongly disagree, while no participants in their group disagree or are neutral.

Municipal/

Private

Strongly

Municipal 0 (0%) 1 (1,9%) 3 (5,8%) 32 (61,5%) 16 (30,8%) Private 1 (9,1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (54,5%) 4 (36,4%)

Table. 4.3.1.5. Showing the distribution of how respondents working at a municipal or private school would find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming.

Looking at the differences between municipal and private schools, we can see that over 90% of both groups either agree or strongly agree that they would find complements useful. For municipal schools 5,8% are neutral and 1,9% disagree. For private schools 9,1% strongly disagree, while none is neutral or disagree.

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6 Analysis

Looking at the results we can see that we succeeded with the goal of getting 63 respondents in the survey and also managed to get respondents from a mix of counties covering some respondents from all counties in Sweden. There were 19,7% of the respondents that disagreed, while 26,2% agreed with the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part (of mathematics, grade 7-9). 42,6% of the respondents were neutral.

In section 4.2 we cover the results of the question in the problem statement to investigate to what extent the teachers (of mathematics, grade 7-9) have used the tools and resources recommended by the Swedish National Agency for Education, to develop their skills within text-based programming. As stated in the problem statement, studies show that the situation in Swedish schools is not optimal, since many teachers feel uncomfortable teaching programming. We also stated that many teachers might not have enough time to take additional classes to learn how to program.

Looking at the results for how many of the teachers (of mathematics, grade 7-9) that knew how to perform text-based programming in fig 4.2,4, only 3,2% agreed while 3,2% were neutral. 93,6% either disagree or strongly disagree. Despite the fact that very few participants knew how to perform text-based programming, we can see in fig 4.2.1 that only 20,6% have taken the recommended web course available for teachers in mathematics by the Swedish National Agency to learn the basics of programming, while 15,9% have partially finished the course.

The course recommended by the Swedish National Agency of 5-HEC[11] that is supposed to give sufficient skills to teach text-based programming has been completed by 1,6% of the teachers (of mathematics, grade 7-9) as can be seen in fig 4.2.2 . 4,8%

have partially completed the course and 1,6% have finished the course. This also raises concerns since it is an even lower rate compared to the 36-hour web course, which connects well to the fact that nothing has been removed while text-based programming has been added to the educational plan. Looking at fig 4.2.3 we can see that 49,2%

disagree and 31,7% strongly disagree with having the time needed to learn how to perform text-based programming.

In section 4.3 we presented the distribution of the participants' gender, their age, how much work experience they had, if they worked at a municipal or private school and if they were qualified to teach mathematics or not. This makes it easier to reproduce the study since we got more details of the characteristics of the population within the survey. To summarize it we can see in fig 4.3.1 that we got a combination of 65,1%

women and 34,9% men. For the age groups we got a mix of different ages with the largest group representing 30,2% of the respondents being between 40-49 years old.

The number of years of experience as teachers (of mathematics, grade 7-9) also contains a mix with 10-19 years as the dominant group representing 30,2% of the respondents.

79,4% of the respondents were qualified to teach mathematics as can be seen in fig 4.3.4 while 82,5% worked for a school that was run by the municipality which can be

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seen in fig 4.3.5. Recent figures from Statistics Sweden (in Swedish, Statistiska Centralbyrån, SCB) show that there are no big deviations from the general distribution of characteristics for teachers in comprehensive schools in Sweden, compared to the distribution of respondents within the survey.

To help us connect to the motivation of this thesis and give developers of educational software an in-depth detail of their target group, we look at how the view differs for the teachers on using complements to the tools and resources provided by the Swedish National Agency for education today, based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school and if they are qualified the teach mathematics or not. This is done in section 4.3.1 where we have a breakdown of each characteristic.

Looking at Table 4.3.1.1 we can see that 95,4% of men and 90,3% of women would find complements useful. In Table 4.3.1.2 we find the distribution among age groups, where 90% of the participants in all the groups either agreed or strongly agreed with finding complements useful. The only group with less than 90% who found complements useful, was the group containing participants between 40-49 years.

Something to notice here is that the group representing 40-49 years is the largest group of respondents which means that the results are probably more accurate in that group since this group got more respondents, compared to the other groups.

When looking at the experience among the respondents, we can see that similar to the age groups, all groups except those who have between 10-19 years of experience, either agreed or strongly agreed with finding complements useful. For the group with 10-19 years of experience 5,3% strongly disagreed, while 5,3% were neutral to finding compliments useful.

Comparing the difference between participants who were qualified to teach mathematics for grades 7-9 or not, we can see that 92,3% of the participants who are not qualified would find compliments useful, while still 92% of the participants who are qualified would find complements useful.

The difference between the need for complements in municipal and private schools, shows in Table 4.3.1.5 that over 90% of the participants in both groups either strongly agreed, or agreed with finding complements useful. 5,8% of the participants in municipal schools were neutral, while 1,9% disagreed. For private schools 9,1%

strongly disagreed.

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7 Discussion

The problem statement of this thesis stated that we wanted to check if there were gaps to fill in the software provided for educational purposes for teachers available today. To investigate this we looked at to what extent the teachers have used the tools and resources recommended by the Swedish National Agency for Education, to develop their skills within text-based programming. Looking at the results addressing the current situation for the teachers, we can see that there are very few who knew how to perform text-based programming before it was announced to be a mandatory part (in mathematics, grade 7-9). Looking at the distribution of the participants who were positive to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part (of mathematics, grade 7-9), we can see that there is a good mix of respondents who agree and disagree, meanwhile the majority of the respondents were neutral. This increases the internal validity, and neglects the risk of getting skewed results that could happen if only participants who are either positive, or negative would participate in the survey, which could have been the case since it was voluntary to participate in this survey.

We can also see that not many of the teachers have used the material provided for them to learn text-based programming, and also very few have the time needed to learn how to perform text-based programming. This raises concerns when connecting to the previous research mentioned in the related work section in this thesis, which shows that text-based programming has a much steeper learning curve than visual programming.

These findings also raise concern to our statement in the background of this thesis, that the Swedish government wants to achieve its vision of becoming the best country in the world to use the benefits of digitalization, since we also showed that according to previous research in the related work section, it is the teachers' digital knowledge and skills that will make the student reach the expected level of digital competence. We also showed in the related work section that previous research has proven that it is the teacher's knowledge within a subject area that is the most crucial part for the students to be successful. These findings connect well with the survey mentioned in our background section made by the Swedish National Agency for Education which showed that 7 out of 10 teachers felt that their programming knowledge was not sufficient enough to teach it properly, especially since their survey did have a focus on programming in general, which also covers visual programming which stated in our related work research section, does not have an as steep learning curve as text-based programming does. The results in section 4.2 also highlights the participant’s lack of time to use the material and tools provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education, which could be a crucial key to investigate further for developers aiming to create tailored software to suit the market needs.

The second question in the problem statement was to investigate how the view differs for teachers on using complements to the tools and resources provided by the Swedish National Agency for education today, based on their gender, their age, how much work experience they have, if they work at a municipal or private school and if

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they are qualified to teach mathematics or not. As we can see in section 4.3.1 there are very small deviations between the different characteristics. This supports the work done in April 2020 by the Swedish National Agency mentioned in the introduction section of this thesis, concluding that one out of five of the representatives of the teachers had no idea if the principals, or teachers had the necessary skills or needed more development within digital competence, to be able to reach their goals. Something interesting to note here is that the need for additional complements is high both for teachers who are not qualified, and those who are qualified. This connects well with the previous research mentioned in the related work section, showing that there is a lack of digital knowledge among qualified teachers, as well as another study that shows that older teachers who have not had programming as part of their own education to become a teacher, did not either have the necessary skills to use digital tools and to teach programming to students.

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8 Conclusions and Future Work

The results of my research bridge the knowledge gap by addressing the current situation and characteristics for teachers, with a focus on if there are gaps to fill in the software provided for educational purposes in Sweden available today. From an industrial perspective developers within educational software will now have a better understanding of the current situation, and a possibility to create software tailored to fit the needs of the market.

The time until text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part (in mathematics, grade 7-9) is about 15 months ahead in time, and according to the results in this thesis very few teachers have used the available material and tools, or have the time needed to develop their skills to feel comfortable teaching text-based programming. Since almost all the teachers within the survey seem to find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful, the educational software for teachers is suited for further analysis.

It is hard to draw any conclusions on the breakdown of the characteristics of the target group, since there is such little deviation of the demand between the different characteristics. Additional characteristics could have been added to get even better knowledge about the target group, but to keep the response rate higher I decided to limit the number of questions in the survey, also due to the fact that teachers do this voluntarily, and do not get scheduled time to participate.

To get a more statistically significant result, a bigger sample size of the population within the survey could have been used. The fact that we do not have an even distribution of the counties in the survey, is also something that could skew the results if some counties have developed their digital competence and skills more than others.

Something else that could have been improved was to compare the results in the study with population data from teachers (in mathematics, grade 7-9) in Sweden, instead of comparing with teachers in general. That data was not possible to retrieve when this study was made.

Regarding the survey, the question on whether the teacher knew how to perform text-based programming or not, could get further specified by asking if the teacher knew how to perform text-based programming enough to teach instead.

Text-based programming is still a new part of the education (in mathematics, grade 7-9) in Sweden, and there is very little research that addresses the teacher’s situation in Sweden facing a new educational plan within mathematics beginning autumn 2022.

For further research the student’s perspective could be interesting to follow up, since as stated in the previous research, the success of the student is in the hands of the teacher. Is text-based programming being taught on the right level for the students?

How does text-based programming compare with visual programming to help the students to learn about mathematics?

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Other areas that could be interesting for further research is to do interviews with teachers and find out exactly what parts of the software that could get improved and why, and to look if there are different needs for different characteristics of the target group. The results showed that most teachers do not have the time needed to learn how to teach text-based programming, something to note is that the focus of this thesis has not been to investigate why they did not have time, but if they got time or not. Hence this is suited for further research.

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Appendix

Survey Letter

Hej!

Mitt namn är Gustav Landin och jag skriver just nu min kandidatuppsats i datavetenskap på Linnéuniversitetet där jag genomför en studie om textbaserad programmering i grundskolan. Min förhoppning är att studien ger möjlighet att vidareutveckla den mjukvara som finns tillgänglig idag och effektivisera inlärningsprocessen för matematiklärare inom ämnet.

Enkäten tar ca 2 minuter att genomföra. All datainsamling kommer att ske enligt forskningsetiska principer, vilket innebär att svaren är anonyma och inga namn eller personlig information sparas enligt GDPR. Ni har när som helst rätt att avbryta

deltagandet i enkäten. Vidare kommer materialet enbart att användas i forskningssyfte.

Det skulle betyda mycket för mig om ni hjälpte till att bidra till min studie.

Länk till enkäten:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0BxaJf7OvMemljx1FdOXfAwC8zaME HkfgSS_H8vOvs6cz-g/viewform?usp=sf_link

Med vänliga hälsningar, Gustav Landin

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Survey

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Survey translated to english

Below are the questions in the survey with explanations:

- What’s your gender?

Explanation: This is to find out if there is a specific group of teachers that has specific needs or not. Also to be able to reproduce the study. Connected to research question 2.

- Are you teaching mathematics for grade 7-9 students?

Explanation: Controlling that the participant is our target group. Connected to research question 2.

- What group of age do you belong to?

- In what county is the school located?

Explanation: This is to control how many participants we got in each county.

- How many years have you worked as a teacher?

- Do you have the Swedish certification to teach math?

Explanation: This is to retrieve information on whether the teacher is qualified to teach math in Sweden according to the Swedish National Agency for Education[27] or not to find out if there is a specific group of teachers that has specific needs. Also to be able to reproduce the study. Connected to research question 2.

- Do you work for a municipal or private school?

- Did you know how to perform text-based programming before it was announced to be a mandatory part in mathematics?

Explanation: This makes it possible to see if there is a difference in teachers who had the skill before it was announced or not. Connected to research question 1.

- Are you positive to the fact that text-based programming is becoming a mandatory part of mathematics?

Explanation: This helps us reduce the risk of under coverage. Connected to research question 1.

- Have you finished the 36 hour web course available for math teachers to learn the basics of programming [14]?

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Explanation: This helps us get a better understanding when looking at the previous questions, to what target group the educational software should be aimed for. Connected to research question 1.

- Have you finished the 5 HEC course in basics of text-based programming [12]?

- Do you feel that you have got the time needed to learn how to perform text-based programming?

- Would you find complements to the material provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education useful to learn text-based programming?

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Programming in Comprehensive School: a Follow Up of the Government's Implementation of the Digitalization Strategy

Bachelor Degree Project