Abstract:

Computational thinking (CT) is increasingly recognized as a key competence in early primary education, supporting the development of problem-solving, reasoning, and digital literacy from the first years of schooling. Among emerging pedagogical approaches, narrative coding combines storytelling and programming activities to create meaningful, creative, and collaborative learning experiences. By integrating narrative structures with tangible programming tools, this approach seeks to make computational concepts more accessible and engaging in early primary education. However, empirical evidence on its effectiveness across educational contexts remains limited. This study, developed within the second phase of the Erasmus+ STORYCODE project, examines CT development in first-grade primary school students participating in the STORYCODE Narrative Coding Lab 2.0 across two European educational contexts.

An experimental pre-test–post-test design was employed, including experimental and control groups. Participants were 87 children in the first year of primary education from four classes: two from a public school in the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) and two from a publicly funded private school in the Valencian Community (Spain). The sample included 44 Italian and 43 Spanish children (mean age = 75 months, SD = 3.50), randomly assigned by class within each country to either the experimental condition, which implemented the STORYCODE Lab 2.0, or the control condition, which followed regular instruction. Among the 87 participants, 16 (18.39%) were reported to present some type of neurodevelopmental or functional difficulty. The intervention consisted of a structured in-class laboratory comprising fifteen collaborative 90-minute sessions, held twice per week over approximately two months.

The lab began with unplugged coding activities, continued with familiarization with the tangible programming tool i-Code, and progressively engaged children in story-retelling and storytelling tasks designed to develop sequencing, repetition, problem-solving, and basic conditional thinking. Student satisfaction with the STORYCODE Lab 2.0 was assessed at the end of the experimental condition. CT was assessed using the Beginner's Computational Thinking Test (BCTt), visual reasoning was measured with Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices, and teacher evaluations were included to explore whether initial learning profiles were associated with different patterns of CT development. Results showed that no uniform overall effect of the STORYCODE Lab 2.0 was observed. Instead, contextual and baseline differences emerged as relevant factors in CT improvement. Teacher-rated student learning competence also showed a small but significant association with CT progress, suggesting that initial student profiles may help explain variability in CT improvement trajectories during the STORYCODE Lab 2.0.

These findings highlight the importance of interpreting CT intervention outcomes in a nuanced way, taking contextual differences and baseline characteristics into account rather than assuming uniform effects across settings. The study contributes empirical evidence on the complexity of implementing and evaluating narrative coding initiatives in early primary education and provides insights for the design of STEAM-based learning experiences in primary school.

Keywords:

Narrative Coding, Computational Thinking, Tangible Programming, Early Primary Education, STEAM Education.