The effect of a programming tool scratch on the problem-solving skills of middle school students

Problem-solving is one of the most important twenty-first-century skills and should be acquired at an early age. Since programming is a kind of problem-solving process, it may be seen in the context of problem-solving skills development. Hence, this study aims to identify the effectiveness of one of the most popular programming tools “Scratch” on middle school students’ problem-solving skills. For this purpose, this current study’s implementation lasted for a period of 14 weeks, based on the ‘Information Technologies and Software’ course at 2 h per week. The course curriculum was conducted for both 18 middle school students in an experimental group and 16 middle school students in a control group at least one hour per week while in the second hour, the control group worked on the activities that the coursebook included and the experimental group engaged in game design activities using Scratch. The Problem Solving Inventory for Children (PSIC) was used as a data collection tool in order to examine the participants’ self-perception with regard to their problem-solving skills. MANOVA, ANOVA, and t-tests were employed in the analysis of the obtained data. The study showed that game design activities with Scratch increased the problem-solving skills of the participants. In this context, game design activities with coding tools can be employed with children in order to help them gain problem-solving skills at an early age.