Age, gender, and spatial knowledge influences on preschoolers’ computer programming ability

Abstract

Thirty‐one threeand four‐year‐old children were observed at four computer tasks in order to determine the extent to which spatial knowledge and memory for the language and mechanics of programming were related. Results indicate only a slight relationship between the children's predicting ability and their programming ability although a significant improvement in both tasks emerged by the last session. On one prediction task and one programming task significantly more fouryear‐olds than three‐year‐olds improved over time. Gender had no effect on either task.