Developing Mathematical Thinking with Scratch

One of the latest trends in the educational landscape is the introduction of computer programming in the K-12 classroom to develop computational thinking in students. As computational thinking is not a skill exclusively related to computer science, it is assumed – but not yet scientifically proven – that the problem solving process may be generalized and transferred to a wide variety of problems. This paper presents a research designed to test whether the use of coding in Maths classes could have a positive impact on learning outcomes of students in their mathematical skills. Therefore, the questions we want to investigate in this paper are if the use of programming in Maths classes improves (a) modeling process and reality phenomena, (b) reasoning, (c) problem formulation and problem solving, and (d) comparison and execution of procedures and algorithms. We have therefore designed a quantitative, quasi-experimental experiment with 42 participating 6th grade (11 and 12 years old) students. Results show that there is a statistically significant increase in the understanding of mathematical processes in the experimental group, which received training in Scratch.