Abstract:

The process of teaching and learning programming is considered challenging by both teachers and students, resulting in a high number of dropouts from programming courses. Although the problems associated with teaching and learning programming are broad, part of the problem stems from the skills, competencies, and prior knowledge of the main actors involved in both sides of the teaching and learning process. Previous research has found that teachers are less successful at teaching programming than they should be. On the other hand, students quickly lose motivation for programming courses. To overcome these problems, it is important to investigate the competencies, skills, and prior knowledge that have the potential to increase the success of teaching and learning in programming courses. Our preliminary research showed that this topic is being researched for many years, yielding several thousands of relevant works. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to identify the key competencies and skills of teachers, as well as the prior knowledge and skills of students, related to teaching and learning programming in high-school and higher education in the form of a tertiary study, mainly focusing on existing reviews. To achieve the main objective of the research, we performed a systematic literature review and the following research questions were formulated: (RQ1): What skills and competencies do teachers need to successfully teach programming? (RQ2): What skills and prior knowledge should students have to learn programming effectively? A review and analysis included studies that addressed (a) teachers' skills and competencies and (b) students' prior knowledge and skills related to teaching and learning programming that were published between 2004 and 2022. A total of 175 papers were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and Google Scholar. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 15 studies were selected for further analysis. The results of the research provide a synthesis and categorization of the key competencies and skills of teachers and students for successful programming in high-school and higher education. Identification of these skills and competencies could be the first step towards developing a new curriculum for teaching programming and improving programming courses.

Keywords:

Tertiary study, key competencies, skills, prior knowledge, students, teachers, high-school education, higher education, course improvement.