Understanding growth mindset practices in an introductory physical computing classroom: high school students’ engagement with debugging by design activities

ABSTRACT

Background and Context

While debugging is recognized as an essential practice, for many students, encountering bugs can generate emotional responses such as fear and anxiety that can lead to disengagement and the avoidance of computer programming. Growth mindsets can support perseverance and learning in these situations, yet few studies have investigated how growth mindsets emerge in practice amongst K–12 computing students facing physical computing debugging challenges.

Objective

We seek to understand what (if any) growth mindset practices high school students exhibited when creating and exchanging buggy physical computing projects for their peers to solve during a Debugging by Design activity as part of their introductory computing course.

Method

We focused on moment-to-moment microgenetic analysis of student interactions in designing and solving bugs for others to examine the practices students exhibited that demonstrated the development of a growth mindset and the contexts in which these practices emerged.

Findings

We identified five emergent growth mindset practices: choosing challenges that lead to more learning, persisting after setbacks, giving and valuing praise for effort, approaching learning as constant improvement, and developing comfort with failure. Students most often exhibited these practices in peer-to-peer interactions and while making buggy physical computing projects for their peers to solve.

Implications

Our analysis contributes to a more holistic understanding of students’ social, emotional, and motivational approaches to debugging physical computing projects through the characterization of growth mindset practices. The presented inventory of growth mindset practices may be helpful to further study growth mindset in action in other computing settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Debugging
• growth mindset
• physical computing

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to Yasmin Kafai (#1742140) and Michael Eisenberg (#1742081). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Colorado, Boulder, or Utah State University. An earlier version of this article titled “Growing Mindsets: Debugging by Design to Promote Students’ Growth Mindset Practices in Computer Science Class” was presented and published in the proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2021. Special thanks to Lindsay Lindberg and Ammarah Aftab for their support in data collection and analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Research ethics and consent statement

We recruited students already enrolled in an introductory computing high school class. A researcher visited the class to invite students to participate, distribute consent and assent forms, and address any questions about the research procedures. Parents received consent forms prior to the study, which included a brief explanation of the research, and youth assented to their participation in writing. Students did not receive any incentives for participating in the study. The IRB board of the University of Pennsylvania approved research protocols and data collection techniques (Protocol: 827747).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants in this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly. Supporting data is not available.

Notes

1. The entire curriculum can be found at http://exploringcs.org/e-textiles

2. Dolores Huerta is a Latina civil rights activist who led (with César Chávez) the 1960s farmer and immigrant rights movement in the Southwestern United States. She came up with the chant “¡Sí se puede!” which became a call for action and persistence during rallies (Sowards, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [1742140 and 1742081].

Notes on contributors

Luis Morales-Navarro

Luis Morales-Navarro is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Technologies program at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research focuses on youth’s computational empowerment and studying novices’ experiences debugging physical computing and machine learning-powered applications. His work appears in journals such as Mind, Culture, and Activity, Computer Science Education, and the British Journal of Educational Technology. Twitter: https://twitter.com/luismn0_0

Deborah A. Fields

Deborah A. Fields is an associate research professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. In her research she seeks to inspire and advocate for children’s creative expression with digital media, coding, and everyday craft materials. She works to break down stereotypes regarding who can create with digital media and computing. This includes projects that create educational opportunities in computing to design with sewable electronics or the popular programming environment, Scratch. This interest carries over into the growing phenomenon of child-generated digital content in online environments. Her work has appeared in journals such as Mind, Culture, and Activity, the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, and the Harvard Educational Review. She authored Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual Worlds (2013; with Yasmin Kafai). Fields is a fellow of the International Society of Design and Development in Education. Twitter: https://twitter.com/StrawbrryBlond

Yasmin B. Kafai

Yasmin B. Kafai is a professor of learning sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a researcher and developer of tools, communities, and materials for the promotion of computational participation, crafting, and creativity across K–16. She recently authored Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2014), Connected Gaming: What Making Videogames Can Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (both with Quinn Burke), and Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual Worlds (2013; with Deborah Fields) and co-edited Textile Messages: Dispatches from the World of Electronic Textiles and Education (2013; with Leah Buechley, Kylie A. Peppler, and Michael Eisenberg) and Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming (2008; with Carrie Heeter, Jill Denner, and Jennifer Y. Sun). Kafai earned a doctorate in education from Harvard University while working with Seymour Papert at the MIT Media Lab. She is an elected fellow of the American Educational Research Association and of the International Society for the Learning Sciences. Twitter: https://twitter.com/katyaskit