In the Netherlands a task-force, supported by the institute of curriculum development, Stichting Leerplan Ontwikkeling (SLO), has been assembled to define core objectives and learning goals for digital literacy that are to be finalized by 2019. The SLO defined digital literacy with the following four elements: ICT basic skills, computational thinking, information skills and media awareness. Computational thinking, frequently taught through programming lessons, is often considered to be the most challenging component of digital literacy. Despite all the work around planning and curriculum building, it is important that teachers’ perspective, their involvement and professional development is thoroughly investigated and prepared to let them teach the concepts of computational thinking (CT) with confidence. With a limited amount of research focusing on teachers, this study aimed at identifying the needs for teachers who are getting started teaching the concepts of CT. In the first part of the study examination of teachers’ TPACK took place via semi-structured interviews. Assessment of learning was identified as a major challenge/need. Teachers expressed not being able to measure how much and what a pupil has learned about CT-concepts and primarily used computer-based practical assignments as an assessment tool in a formative way. In the second part of the study a lead-up survey was created to gain more insight about the used CT assessment tools and teachers’ attitude towards CT assessment. To test whether attitude towards assessment and assessment tool suitability was different for programming lessons, respondents were asked to rate statements and assessment tool suitability within three different contexts (i.e. education in general, their own subject and programming lessons). Despite a noticeable decrease in summative score and an increase in formative score for programming lessons, no statistically significant difference was found across the three contexts when measuring latent variables for formative and summative assessment. However, several statistically significant differences were found measuring the suitability of assessment tools. In terms of programming lessons, teachers rated not practical and not computer-based assessment tools significantly lower in suitability while a set of small practical computer-based assignments were rated significantly higher in suitability. Future research can focus on examining teachers’ arguments with regard to the suitability scores that they have given and measuring attitude towards assessment for programming in general.

Only 32% of the Dutch primary schools do something with programming, despite its benefits on students’ skills, job opportunities, understanding of the world, and diversity. Primary school teachers not getting involved with programming education can be caused by a lack of belief in their teaching programming abilities. The belief in your own abilities towards a certain task is referred to as self-efficacy. We hypothesize that Dutch primary school teachers have a low self-efficacy towards programming education (partially) due to the teaching method used in programming education. Programming is often taught via discovery learning while Dutch primary school teachers use teacher-centered methods such as direct instruction more often. The usage of a certain teaching method can also influence the performance of the teacher. When teachers are able to use their existing knowledge and skills, then they have adaptive expertise. This research aims at answering the following question: What is the effect of teaching methods on the self-efficacy of Dutch primary school teachers towards programming education? The research question is answered through a mixed methods study consisting of a questionnaire, as part of a quantitative research, and an experiment, as part of a qualitative research. The questionnaire includes questions about teaching methods, self-efficacy, and demographics. In total 259 teachers participated within the questionnaire. We found that both direct instruction and discovery learning are well known by Dutch primary school teachers. Direct instruction is used by almost all participating teachers in their regular education. However, discovery learning is used by only 53% of the teachers in our sample. We also found that gender, grade, programming experience, and programming teaching experience result in differences in teachers’ self-efficacy towards programming education. Furthermore, teachers who expect to use discover learning in programming lessons have a different self-efficacy than teachers that do not expect this. An experiment is set-up in which ten Dutch primary school teachers give four programming lessons in Scratch while following either a direct instruction or discovery learning approach. Data is gathered on self-efficacy and adaptive expertise. We found that getting involved in programming education, independently of the teaching method, can increase the self-efficacy of teachers. However, the teachers in the discovery learning expressed more negative feelings towards the experience of teaching programming. The usage of discovery learning also seems to bring the risk of a decrease in self-efficacy. We think that adaptive expertise gives us more insights into this decrease. The teachers with a decreased self-efficacy showed higher levels of adaptive expertise. We think that this contributes to them having higher expectations of themselves. When these expectations are not met, a decrease in self-efficacy can occur. The research we have done indicate that the self-efficacy towards programming education of Dutch primary school teachers can increase while using either direct instruction or discovery learning. The experiment indicates that the usage of discovery learning can cause more negative feelings as well as the risk of a decrease in self-efficacy.