Abstract:

As programming is highly requested occupation in the world market, there is a need for lowering the age level for learning programming in primary education in order to develop students’ digital literacy but also digital fluency. There is a worldwide trend, and many initiatives, for lowering the age for learning programming resulting in the implementation of new computing curriculums in many countries. The Republic of Croatia is one of the countries which changed the informatics curriculum starting with school year 2018/2019. The main modification of the curriculum refers to the changing the status of Informatics course for 5th and 6th grades of elementary schools from elective to a mandatory course. Programming is one of the most represented topics in the new Informatics curriculum. Programming lectures are based on the spiral curriculum. To investigate motivation and attitude towards programming after the first year of a new informatics curriculum implementation in the elementary schools, we conducted the survey among the first generation of 5th and 6th graders in elementary schools who attended the Informatics course based on the new curriculum. The survey was conducted among 936 students in various cities in the Republic of Croatia. Results of the research are presented in this paper.

Keywords:

Curriculum, informatics, programming, elementary school, attitudes.