Abstract:

In this paper, author discusses the importance and the need for teaching and learning computer programming in primary education. Due to the increasing use of automation, robots and artificial intelligence, the needs for occupations in the labour market are changing - some existing occupations are being discontinued, and others are being created. According to the information from various sources, it is expected that today's primary school students, when they grow up, will work in the occupations that do not yet exist today. Various predictions say that it will be between 33%, over 65%, and up to 85% of new occupations. Today's primary education students should be prepared for such future labour market by introducing them early in their education to the technologies they are likely to encounter in their future workplace.

If machines (robots and computers) will perform heavy and repetitive tasks, and a range of other tasks that can be automated or controlled by artificial intelligence, then the people are left with tasks such as designing, building, operating, monitoring, and maintaining such machines, at least until they themselves are designed, built, and maintained. One of the activities that is increasingly present in today’s occupations, and with a very high probability very much in the future, is the programming of computers to perform tasks that can be automated.

Author presents the results of the research of the primary education prospective teachers' opinion on computer programming in the primary education of the Republic of Croatia. The aim of this research is to find out their interest on computer programming and whether they think that the knowledge about computer programming is important for today’s primary education students.

The research hypotheses are:
Hypothesis 1: Primary education prospective teachers would like to learn more about computer programming.
Hypothesis 2: Primary education prospective teachers believe that computer programming is important for today’s primary education students in relation to their future occupations.

The survey participants were 109 (106 female and 3 male) primary education prospective teachers - the students at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Teacher Education. The data were collected in January and February 2020. using the anonymous online Google Forms questionnaire prepared by the author. Statistical analysis (including One Sample t-test) was performed using the free and open source statistical software GNU PSPP, version 1.0.1. (https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/).

The research results show that on the scale of 1 to 5 (1-poor to 5-excellent), the primary education prospective teachers self-evaluate their current knowledge of computer programming as M=2,52.

On the Likert scale (1-strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree) they would like to learn more about computer programming (M=3,70, t=6,61, sig. < 0,01), and their opinion is that computer programming is important for today’s primary education students in relation to their future occupations (M=3,72, t=7,65, sig. < 0,01). Both hypotheses are confirmed.

Keywords:

Primary education, prospective teachers, computer programming, future occupations.