Received: 13 May 2020 | Accepted: 2 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/cae.22319

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Advancing preuniversity students' computational thinking

skills through an educational project based on tangible
elements and virtual block‐based programming

Sergio Trilles | Carlos Granell

Institute of New Imaging Technologies

(INIT), Universitat Jaume I, Castellón de
la Plana, Castelló, Spain
Correspondence
Sergio Trilles, Institute of New Imaging
Technologies (INIT), Universitat Jaume I,
Av. Vicente Sos Baynat s/n, 12071 Castelló
de la Plana, Castelló, Spain.
Email: strilles@uji.es
Funding information
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación,
Grant/Award Number: RYC‐2014‐16913;
Universitat Jaume I,
Grant/Award Number: POSDOC‐B/
2018/12
Abstract
University students enroling in Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM)‐related studies such as computer science continue to
decline, even though worldwide educational policy reports warn about the
need for this type of professionals in the immediate future. Promoting com-
puter science studies among preuniversity students seems the most direct so-
lution to reverse this issue. In this context, we present the Sucre4Kids project
whose main objectives are to engage young people into computational thinking
and programming concepts using tangible elements and social interaction. We
apply the Sucre4Kids approach to introductory courses of computational
thinking and programming concepts to high‐school students. The main results
of the 3‐year intervention in the classroom with 256 high‐school students
reached suggest that tangible elements and social interaction in groups are
determining factors in increasing students' motivation to learn to code and to
raise their interest in STEM disciplines.

KEYWORDS
block‐based programming, computational thinking, computer science education, STEAM, tangible
elements

1 | INTRODUCTION constant, its low value is especially worrying compared to

Informatics Europe releases annually a report on the si-
tuation of computer science programmes in Europe,
comparing European countries in terms of the number of
students per one million inhabitants and the percentage
of female students in study programmes related to com-
puter science and informatics, among other statistical
indicators. In the seventh report in the series that covers
the years 2013 and 2018 [29], Spain does not improve
concerning the previous two indicators. Although the
ratio of students per million inhabitants remains
other European countries. Unfortunately, this steady
trend over the past decade has done nothing to promote
computer science studies among preuniversity students,
who are the focus of this study.
The previous report suggests that the demand and
supply of Information Technology (IT) professionals do
not adjust, far exceeding demand to existing supply. Far
from being reduced, this mismatch is expected to in-
crease, with the potential risk of turning computing in
Europe into a “bottleneck” in the coming years. The
European Commission estimates seven million

Sergio Trilles and Carlos Granell contributed equally to this study.

1490 | © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae Comput Appl Eng Educ. 2020;28:1490–1502.
TRILLES AND GRANELL
employees by 2025 for the entire Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sector [7]. Con-
versely, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development, today's high‐school students
in Spain—who will be the professionals of tomorrow—
present unequal skills in their levels of knowledge in
science and mathematics, occupying middle‐low posi-
tions in the ranking [23].
Given this rather pessimistic future outlook, pro-
moting computer science studies among preuniversity
students is more urgent than ever. Exacerbated by rapid
technological advances that will transform the skill
landscape in many professions, students and teachers
need to strengthen their computing skills in the present
for the jobs of the future [41]. It is necessary to look for
incentives and alternative forms to promoting computa-
tional thinking, programming and, ultimately, the sci-
entific vocation among the youngest. A recent column on
the prospects of IT workforce in Europe put it clearly:
“the countries that lead the Information and Commu-
nications Technologies sector in Europe today are the
ones that invested a great deal of resources 20 years ago,
especially in education. In order to catch up, much effort
must be focused on developing computer science in
school” [17].
Wing's [40] definition is widely mentioned in the lit-
erature as the starting point for the discussion of com-
putational thinking. In her opinion, computational
thinking has a dual purpose. On one hand, computa-
tional thinking is a thought process, disconnected from
technology. On the other, it is seen as a way to formalise
and solve problems that require a set of abilities and
skills, which are also fundamental problem‐solving skills
in many other domains such as in science [38] and en-
gineering education [18]. Abstraction, algorithmic
thinking, automation, decomposition, debugging, pattern
recognition and generalisation, are shared competences
and abilities discussed in the related literature [3,6], even
though full agreement on the definition of computational
thinking is still up for discussion [11,2]. We recognise the
value of computational thinking. However, we advocate a
change in the role of computational thinking in pre-
university students, to go beyond learning to code to a
new educational context in which students develop
computational applications of importance to them [15]. It
is widely recognised that novice programmers learn to
code within a given domain, as programming experience
is primarily acquired in a specific domain. Similarly, it is
vital to connect computing and programming with the
kind of projects and applications that younger students
find personally relevant and motivating so that they can
perceive the potential impact that computing has on their
“domains.” In this regard, some authors call for action to
| 1491
shift from computational thinking to computational ac-
tion [36].
In this paper, we explored the idea of computational
action in the classroom. The goal of the Sucre4Kids pro-
ject [37] is to promote scientific vocations, computational
thinking and programming in high school and vocational
training to students. Putting aside the technical specifi-
cation of the elements of the Sucre4Kids project [13], the
focus here is in the way to engage students in an in-
troductory course to programming and computational
concepts. We summarise an intervention in which the
Sucre4Kids was applied to (256) high‐school students for
3 years. The intervention was designed to empower social
interactions among students to influence positively on
their perception of the benefits of the course content.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows.
Section 2 includes related works similar to the Sucre4Kids
project. Section 3 presents the methodological approach,
including the technical kit used in the course and the
qualitative and quantitative research methods employed
in the classroom. Section 4 discusses the results. Section 5
summaries the main findings and presents future lines of
research.
2 | RELATED WORK
In the academic and industry worlds, there are different
initiatives and kits similar to Sucre4Kids to promote
computational thinking and programming among young
people. Nevertheless, not all these initiatives package
tangible and programming features together; there are
many more initiatives without a tangible part due to its
higher cost and difficult distribution. Yu et al. [42] clas-
sify the initiatives that are aimed at computational
thinking and programming into five groups: physical kits
with or without electronics (2), virtual kits (1) and hybrid
kits with virtual or tangible programming blocks (2). The
Sucre4Kids project can be considered as hybrid kits with
virtual block‐based programming, but it has a variation
due to the addition of electronic elements. Next, similar
kits within this category, also featuring electronic ele-
ments, are analysed and compared to our proposal
(Table 1).
Talkoo [16] is based on Arduino. Sensor and actuators
are easily pluggable and require no soldering or prior
knowledge of electronics. These components “respond”
to the visual tool, and it is not necessary to load a pro-
gramme. Talkoo is running all modules at the same time
and shows in real‐time the I/O values of the sensors and
actuators. Based on the original Grove connectors, Grove
Zero [29] adds magnetic connectors to the electronic
components to facilitate the connection between them.
1492 | TRILLES AND GRANELL

TABLE 1 Comparison of the analysed kits, including Sucre4Kids at the bottom row

Open Project‐ Plug & play Programming Sensors/ Price

Project/kit hardware based connectors language Organisation actuators (approx.)
Talkoo NS No Yes Arduino Individual NS NS
Grove Zero NS Yes Yes Arduino Individual 6 79 €
Micro:bit Yes Yes No Java and Individual 4 (On board) 20 €
MicroPython
Chibi Chip Yes Yes Yes Arduino Individual 0 26 €
Circuit Yes No No Arduino Individual 5 27 €
Playground
Express
Neuron No Yes Yes – Individual 6 70 €
MODI No Yes Yes Own language Individual 17 570 €
Sucre4Kids Yes Yes Yes Arduino Individual + group 11 84 €

Note: Prices as of June 2020.

Abbreviation: NS, not specified.

Following a colour nomenclature, the Grove Zero kit in-
cludes different sensors and actuators. It comes with a
custom integrated development environment (IDE) based
on Microsoft MakeCode accessible as a web application.
Another widely known kit is the BBC‐powered Micro:bit
[19] to promote programming among young people. Like
Arduino, Micro:bit is a small open hardware board that
allows to running code on it. Unlike Arduino, it in-
tegrates a series of prebuilt actuators and sensors such as
a 5 × 5 matrix, accelerometer or Bluetooth. As a packed
solution, Micro:bit is easy to use at the cost of being
limited to straightforward projects, since it does not
include external sensors nor connectors. The micro-
controller can be programmed using Java or Micropython
(a language similar to Python). Neuron [21] is a pro-
grammable electronic building block platform and
contains different sensors and actuators, such as led,
cameras, ultrasonic or motors. Unlike using virtual
blocks for programming, Neuron uses flow‐based pro-
gramming blocks. The Luxrobo company launched a
Kickstarter campaign for the development of MODI in
2016 [20]. MODI is a STEM project similar to Neuron, its
more than 13 sensors and actuators offer magnetic con-
nectors. An application called MODI Studio is needed to
programme the microcontroller. Chibi Chip [8] is another
microcontroller aimed at the youngest who can build
interactive paper circuits with LEDs. It allows block‐
based coding or text‐based coding using the Arduino IDE.
Finally, Circuit Playground Express [9] is a board similar
to Micro:bit that incorporates sensors (temperature, light
or accelerometer), buttons, a speaker and different LEDs.
Like Grove Zero, it relies on Microsoft MakeCode for
block‐based visual programming although test‐based
programming is also supported through the Arduino
IDE.
Table 1 compares the previous kits to Sucre4Kids
(bottom row) according to the following comparison
criteria.
• Open hardware, if it can be openly used, modified and
distributed. Scale: Yes/No.
• Project‐based, if it proposes projects to ease learning.
Scale: Yes/No.
• Plug and play connectors, if it offers plug and play
connectors to ease connecting electronic components.
Scale: Yes/No.
• Programming language, indicates the programming
language used to code the board. Scale: Python, Ardu-
ino, Java or Javascript, among others.
• Organisation, if it is designed to allow an individual or
group learning strategy. Scale: Individual/Group.
• Sensor/actuators, number of sensors or actuators in-
cluded in the package.
• Price, the global price of all the components included
in the kit.
According to Table 1, all the initiatives are classified
as open hardware, except Talkoo and Grove zero, which
do not specify it. Sucre4Kids, Grove Zero, Micro:bit and
Chibi Chip offer additional documentation and resources
to carry out guided projects. Regarding the use of
connectors, Talkoo, Grove Zero and Chibi Chip, plus
Sucre4Kids facilitate the assembly of electronic compo-
nents using plug and play connectors. All kits support
visual programming and text‐based programming. All but
Micro:bit use Arduino programming language; Micro:bit
TRILLES AND GRANELL
uses Java and MicroPython. None but Sucre4Kids were
specifically designed to working in groups. In terms of
number of sensors and actuators. Finally, in terms of
sensors and actuators included in the pack and its price,
MODI is the option with the most variety of elements (17
sensors/actuators). However, its price is much higher
than the other options. The second option is Sucre4Kids
with 11 different items, and its cost is eight times lower
than MODI.
3 | METHODOLOGY
Sucre4Kids is an educational project to welcome
young people into computational thinking and pro-
gramming concepts and to promote scientific vocation
in general. It encourages curiosity in programming by
introducing students to technology related to elec-
tronic devices and the “maker” movement [14]. The
reduced cost of these electronic components and the
increased growth in knowledge sharing that the ma-
ker culture features are democratising the creative use
of this technology for commercial and personal pur-
poses. Projects such as Cubelets, MOSS and LittleBits
give importance to the tangible part, so that students
can touch and connect, sparking their interest in
learning to code [5]. Tangible interact is central to
Sucre4Kids through the use of microcontrollers and
electronic components combined with block‐based
programming tools for the development of computa-
tional projects (Section 3.1.1).
Any educational activity, whether technology‐based
or not, should be designed by how people learn. Many
educational theories have evolved over the years (e.g.,
behaviourism, constructivism), as researchers and edu-
cators try to understand and explain how people learn
best and in what context. Among them, we particularly
focus on constructionism, as it connects strongly with the
idea of computational action. Constructionism entails
creation and experimentation in the learning process [1].
In the words of Seymour Papert, “everything can be un-
derstood by being constructed” [1]. So constructionism is
an educational theory that posits that learning takes place
best when students are constructing objects in the real
world. However, if we also experiment with things that
are meaningful to us, learning is much more enjoyable
and motivating. Precisely, the important part of con-
structionism is connected with the interest and passions
of the students. With Sucre4Kids, we prepare students to
experiment by “learning by doing” [28], encouraging
sessions to be open, participatory and based on collective
work. It is leveraging social interaction (Section 3.1.3),
students code projects that are important to them,
| 1493
stimulating a growing interest in coding and computa-
tional concepts.
After an overview of the methodological approach,
next, we present the main characteristics of Sucre4Kids
(Section 3.1), followed by the description of the protocol
of the course intervention and the qualitative and quan-
titative research methods used (Section 3.2).
3.1 | Sucre4Kids: Towards
computational action through tangible
and social interaction
3.1.1 | SucreKit: The tangible
interaction
The SucreKit (Figure 1) contains a set of electronic
components required to build guided and freestyle pro-
jects. The included electronic components can recreate
the functional parts of any traditional computer: a com-
puting core and inputs/outputs (I/O) devices. The
equivalent to the core (e.g., microcontroller and buses) in
a desktop computer is the Arduino UNO board and the
Grove shield, which eases the connection of the I/O de-
vices (sensors/actuators) to the board. Sensors and ac-
tuators act as input and output devices, respectively. All
components can be combined in many ways, allowing a
high degree of flexibility to create a wide range of dif-
ferent projects.
Table 2 specifies the technical details and cost of each
of the electronic components in the kit, as well as other
additional materials that are included in the kit.
The advantage of SucreKit over other available kits
lies in its openness. Open hardware and open source are
defining characteristics of the kit and, in general, of the
entire Sucre4Kit project. As we will see in Section 4, the
kit is understandable to students regardless of their pre-
vious level of knowledge on electronics.
3.1.2 | Block‐based programming
Block‐based programming is becoming popular over text‐
based programming to broadly introduce the concepts
and practice of programming [29], to the extent that some
authors highlight the value of block‐based, visual pro-
gramming as a gateway to traditional text‐based pro-
gramming [30]. Block‐based programming provides
visual cues to the novice to figure out what instruction to
use. These visual cues take the form of differently shaped
and coloured blocks that represent programming con-
cepts, such as variable definitions, conditions or func-
tions. Interactively, blocks are visually adjusted or
1494 | TRILLES AND GRANELL

FIGURE 1 Electronic components and educational materials included in the SucreKit

TABLE 2 Complete list of components of the SucreKit

Type Element Description Values Price (€)

Core Arduino UNO Microcontroller N/A 21.37
Grove shield Shield with 16 connectors N/A 7.6
Sensors Soil humidity Can measure soil moisture [0, 900] 2.55
Light Can measure the amount of light [0, 750] 2.48
Distance Can obtain the distance between an object [10, 80] cm 11.87
Noise Can measure the amount of noise [0, 1023] 4.18
Humidity and temperature Can measure air humidity and temperature [20, 90]% (Hum.) [0, 50]°C (temp) 5.20
Button Can enable or disable High/low 1.71
Actuators LED multicolour Can turn on or turn off a variable colour LED High/low 1.62
LED bar Can turn on or off nine leds in a bar [0–9] Positions 3.33
Display Can display any bitmap 96 × 16 pixels 13.14
Buzzer Can turn on or off constant sound High/low 1.71
Others Role badges Ccoordinator, hardware, programmer, analyst N/A 3.00
Description cards 6× sensors, 4× actuators, and 3× projects N/A 2.6
Connector Universal Serial Bus type‐B cable N/A 1.55
Total = 84.27
Note: Prices as of April 2020.
Abbreviation: N/A, not applicable.

connected, analogue to how standard code is written
(nested instructions, etc).
There are several initiatives related to block‐based
visual programming [4], such as the well‐known Scratch
[26], MIT App Inventor [25], and Google Blockly [12].
In the Sucre4Kids project, we have developed a web
application [33] for block‐based programming based on
Blockly, creating new blocks for each sensor and actuator
included in the kit, and making them available to users
like any other regular command block (Figure 2).
The web application can be downloaded from an open
repository [31].
TRILLES AND GRANELL | 1495

FIGURE 2 Web tool developed for the Sucre4Kids project to visually programme

3.1.3 | Projects as a goal: The social
interaction
Students are challenged through “stories” capable of
connecting with students and arousing their interest.
Three different projects have been defined plus a freestyle
project. Following all project are detailed.
• “Smart plant” project (Figure 3): The goal is to know if
we should water a plant. Using the soil moisture sensor
to measure plant humidity and the bar LED to indicate
the level.
• “Smart Parking” project: Recreates the system of free
spaces in public car parks or shopping centres. Using a
distance sensor, we can check if there is an object (e.g.,

FIGURE 3 Smart plant project example

1496 | TRILLES
miniature car) in a place (parking). An LED is used to
display if a parking space is occupied or free.
• “Smart Light” project: Simulates a smart light, check-
ing the light intensity level in a room, using a light
sensor and activating an LED if the light intensity level
is low.
Each project covers the two concepts introduced
above: design and assembly of electronic components,
and computational thinking competencies and program-
ming skills. However, the potential of Sucre4Kids lies in
the ability to reuse the elements in different projects,
since teachers and students can create as many original
projects with the SucreKit as ideas proposed. Another
project example could be "lights respond smartly to the
intensity of music."
3.2 | Course protocol
We have put Sucre4Kid in practice in a short course
(called Pràctica a l'UJI) to promote computer science
study programmes at the Universitat Jaume I de Castelló,
Spain. The course is composed of six sessions, and the
same materials and content are delivered in all sessions
as the course is not an introduction to programming
concepts per se. Still, its objective is to reach as much
as possible preuniversity students and catch their atten-
tion and motivation on computational concepts and
programming.
Each session lasts for ∼2 hr and houses a maximum of
25 students. Two facilitators (authors) were always pre-
sent in each session to introduce the Sucre4Kids project
and other educational content. The institute teachers
responsible for the students often attended but remained
in the background without intervening in the session.
The principal facilitator (PF) took an active role by orally
presenting the course content. The secondary facilitator
(SF) observed participants wiring components, coding
and their behaviour when working individually or
collaboratively. Both facilitators‐assisted participants if
doubts arose. Regarding materials, a visual presentation,
a projector and the SucreKit box were used, along with
desktop computers for participants.
A session was divided into three different sections
(A–C). In Section A, PF first introduced the course
agenda, pedagogical objectives and basic notions of
block‐based programming. Participants worked in-
dividually in a desktop computer, following the pre-
sentation available in an online education platform
(Moodle). Next, PF proceeded with the Sucrekit block
(Section 3.1.1). Here, the participants switched from in-
dividual to group work and formed groups of four people,
AND GRANELL
assigning one SucreKit per group. PF described each of
the electronic components (e.g., the Arduino board, the
Grove shield, sensors and actuators) and how to set up the
computational environment. Participants downloaded
the required libraries and imported them into the Ardu-
ino IDE. To close the Section A, PF introduced the block‐
based programming tool (Section 3.1.2) and described the
relevant blocks that referred to programming concepts
such as conditionals, variables and functions, and to
sensors and actuators. A guided project was carried out
during the Section B. First, each group familiarised with
the Sucrekit with a basic example to wire an LED and
code the blocks to turn it on/off. Then, students went into
the guided “smart plant” project (Section 3.1.3), which
consisted of wiring a soil moisture sensor and an LED bar
actuator to the Arduino board plus the required code to
make the assemblage function as expected. Finally, in
Section C, each group carries out a freestyle project.
Table 3 summarises the type and characteristics of the
interventions per section. Sucre4Kids was born with a
strong commitment to tangible interaction; participants
touch and interact with the sensors and actuators,
wire them into the board and bring the assemblage to
life through black‐based programming. The novelty in-
troduced in the sessions from 2018 onwards was the ex-
plicit assignment of roles. Inspired by social and tangible
coding work [34], where authors exploit programming in
pairs with different roles, we designed coloured badges
(Figure 1) and assigned one role to each group member.
Following a software development team, we defined four
different roles: coordinator, hardware, programmer and
analyst. We hypothesised that the explicit designation of
roles could significantly reinforce the motivation of the
group members and the social interaction in the
group work.
The execution of the course was complemented with
quantitative and qualitative research methods for data
collection. As earlier mentioned, SF remained more on
the sidelines to carry out covert observation [27] without
the students being aware that they were being observed.
Covert observation consists basically of taking notes on
paper, and sporadically photographic material (preser-
ving participants’ privacy), about the reactions and be-
haviour of students in each of the section of a session
and, especially, during group work. Therefore, this social
research method was tailored to the nature and condi-
tions of the practical sessions.
Before starting each session, PF/SF asked their
counterparts (high‐school teachers of technology and/or
computer science who accompanied their students to the
university) about the students’ prior knowledge of pro-
gramming and computing concepts in general. At the end
of the session, and without students, PF/SF discussed
TRILLES AND GRANELL | 1497

TABLE 3 Type and characteristics of

Year Section Content Tangible Organisation
the interventions per section
2017 A Introductory talks N/A Individual + group (without assigned
roles)
2017 B Guided project Yes Group (without assigned roles)
2017 C Freestyle project Yes Group (without assigned roles)
2018 A Introductory talks N/A Individual + group (without assigned
roles)
2018 B Guided project Yes Group (with assigned roles)
2018 C Freestyle project Yes Group (with assigned roles)
2019 A Introductory talks N/A Individual + group (without assigned
roles)
2019 B Guided project Yes Group (with assigned roles)
2019 C Freestyle project Yes Group (with assigned roles)

Note: Parentheses in the tangible column indicates that only group work was tangible.
Abbreviation: N/A, not applicable.

informally with the high‐school teachers about the
teaching materials employed in the course and their
perception of the student's attitude and interest towards
the course content.
With respect to quantitative methods, we conducted a
short anonymous survey in the 2019 sessions. At the end
of each session, students were asked to respond to the
following Likert‐scale sentences in the range strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (5):
• P1: The class has gone so fast.
• P2: The guided/freestyle projects have been useful in
understanding the concepts.
• P3: It was easy to follow the development of the
project.
• P4: I liked the way teamwork was organised.
• P5: I would like to know more about sensors and
coding.
4 | R E S U L T S AN D D I S C U S S I O N
4.1 | Participants
As indicated, the course intervention was carried out in
the realm of the Pràctica a l'UJI programme, which aims
to promote the computer science degree at UJI among
high‐school students. Course experiences in the 2017 and
2018 editions are reported elsewhere [37]; this paper in-
stead adds our experience in the 2019 edition, which
introduced new changes as explained in Section 3.2 and
compared them to prior deployments of the course. Over
the three years, 15 sessions in total were held in January
2017, 2018 and 2019 (one session was cancelled in 2018
and two in 2019), and 256 high‐school students aged
between 14 and 18 years old participated in the course
(Table 4). All data and scripts developed for this study are
available in a public repository [32].
4.2 | Quantitative results
Of the 15 sessions held, the longest session took 105 min
(the maximum set), and the shortest was 85 min. The
average session duration was 93 min. Figure 4 shows the
percentage distribution of the three types of sections for
each session. Except for some unusual session, the rest
follow a similar pattern: Section A occupies ∼60% of the
session, while the remaining 40% is distributed among
Sections B and C. The average participation per session
was 17 students.
In particular, the average time spent on Section A was
57 min, with 70 min being the maximum time (2017‐05
and 2019‐01) spent and 45 min the session with less
dedication (2018‐01). Section B, the guided project, lasted
20 min on average, being 40 min the section with more
dedication (2018‐01) and 10 min the least (2019‐06).
Section C, the freestyle project, spent 15 min on average,
ranging from 0 (2017‐05) to 25 min (2017‐02 and 2019‐
06). The reason for skipping the last section was because
half of the students were late to the session.
We might think that sessions with fewer students
would have progressed more rapidly than more crowded
sessions. However, no clear pattern is perceived in this
direction, that is, between the number of participants and
the temporal distribution of the sections. Other factors,
1498 | TRILLES AND GRANELL

Year Duration Students Male Female Ongoing studies

TABLE 4 Breakdown of all sessions
held during 2017–2019
2017‐01 105 20 N/A N/A Vocational training
2017‐02 105 22 N/A N/A Middle school
2017‐03 95 13 N/A N/A High school
2017‐04 95 6 N/A N/A High school
2017‐05 95 25 N/A N/A High school
2017‐06 90 22 N/A N/A High school
2018‐01 95 20 18 2 High school
2018‐02 85 19 13 6 Middle school
2018‐03 90 19 18 1 Vocational training
2018‐04 85 19 15 4 High school
2018‐05 90 21 15 4 High school
2019‐01 95 17 12 5 High school
2019‐03 95 13 8 5 High school
2019‐04 90 13 12 1 High school
2019‐06 90 7 7 0 High school

Abbreviation: N/A, not applicable.

F I G U R E 4 Percentage distribution of A–C sections per session. Points represent number of participants per session. Average
participation per session was 17
TRILLES AND GRANELL
such as prior knowledge of students or group variability
(in terms of the number of group members), could in-
fluence the durability of each section in a session.
Figure 5 shows the results of the 50 respondents in
the 2019 sessions. Overall, the results are satisfactory;
63% have qualified with “Strongly agree” to all questions,
32% on average answered “Agree,” while 4% did so in
“Neutral” and only 0.4% in “Disagree” (only one ques-
tion). If we analyse each question individually, 74% of
respondents indicated they strongly agreed with question
P2 ("The guided/freestyle projects have been useful in
understanding the concepts"). On the other edge, the
least desired question was P5 (“I would like to know
more about sensors and programming”), which 8% and
2% of respondents expressed “Neutral” and “Disagree”
perceptions to that question, respectively. Nevertheless,
responses to question P5 are rather positive, since re-
spondents showed a clear interest in learning more
content related to programming. It remains to be seen,
however, whether their interest is high enough to enrol
in university studies in computer science or similar.
4.3 | Qualitative results
During the Section A, two blocks of activities were car-
ried out. The first one was a brief introduction to visual
block‐based programming (Blockly), where students
practice coding individually in a web‐based maze game.
F I G U R E 5 Results of the survey conducted in the 2019 edition of the “Pràctica a l'UJI” (N = 50). Only high percentages (agree,
totally agree) and neutral are shown. All but one (2%) of the low percentages (strongly disagree, disagree) are zero
| 1499
The second block consisted of an introduction to the
Arduino microcontroller, in which students initiated the
activity individually but later were organised into groups
without a division of roles.
Concerning the first block of activities, a recurrent
observation in all sessions was that students quickly ab-
sorbed the concepts of visual block‐based programming.
In general, students found the semantics of block‐based
constructs, such as loops and conditionals, very intuitive
while solving the programming levels of the maze game.
Additionally, students could immediately test written
code that provided instant feedback on code validity, a
feature that is perfectly suited to the first steps of the
programming learning process [30]. This observation is
consistent with the results to question P3 in which 98% of
responses satisfactorily agreed with the sentence “it was
easy to follow the development of the project.” And it is
also supported by literature; Tissenbaum et al. [36] found
that a cohort of students in an introductory programming
course using block‐based programming outperformed
those taught the same course with text‐based
programming.
Block‐based programming was attractive. In all ses-
sions, we appreciated that about half of the students did
not want to leave the maze game and continued playing,
even 10 min after the next block was initiated (Arduino
microcontroller). Some kept both screens at once, the
maze game and the presentation about Arduino. The
extreme level is a case of two students (2017‐03) who,
1500 | TRILLES
after the session ended, remained “competing" among
them to solve the advanced level of the maze game while
the rest of the classmates had already gone.
The variability of the profiles of the participants al-
lowed us to explore the attractiveness of block‐based
programming from different angles. For example, parti-
cipants from vocational training studies (2017‐01, 2018‐
03) had greater difficulty to reach higher levels in the
maze game than other students. This could be explained
by a lower knowledge of the programming of these stu-
dents, since the higher the level of the game, the more
complex the coding was. Nevertheless, based on the
collected data alone, we do not have enough evidence to
explain this effect in the students of vocational training
studies, which may be derived from their lack of interest,
insufficient knowledge, by pure chance or a combination
of them. What is clear is that block‐based programming
dramatically lowers the barriers for novices to learn
programming concepts, although other factors (prior
knowledge, etc.,) may partially slow down their learning
progress.
Another observation worth mentioning is that the
interaction between students was practically absent. In-
dividual work in front of the computer created an at-
mosphere of almost total silence in the classroom, except
for brief comments between adjacent students to help
each other to solve difficulties in the maze game. Com-
pared to individual work, this collaboration between
neighbouring students suggests that pair programming
could work naturally to enhance computational action
and accelerate programming learning [10].
Concerning the second block of activities in Section A
(introduction to the Arduino microcontroller), we ap-
preciated that students had no prior knowledge about
Arduino and sensors (confirmed by their teachers). The
PF's talk was necessary because most students never had
such electronic devices in their hands. Students carefully
examined the sensors and actuators of the SucreKit and
connected them carefully. We felt they cared about what
they had on their hands. Nevertheless, they gained con-
fidence soon. In the 2017 session, each member of a
group was not assigned a specific role, so the interaction
in the group was still poor and did not alter the atmo-
sphere of silence. Group work varied depending on the
number of members. When the group was composed of
three students, de facto roles were still implicitly dis-
tributed for collaborative work. The student sited in front
of the computer was in charge of the programming with
the web tool (Figure 2), while the other two at each side
took distinct responsibilities: one assembled the electro-
nic components and the other checked the documenta-
tion. With groups of four or more, that implicit
collaboration no longer worked as well, and typically one
AND GRANELL
group member took the leadership without counting the
rest, leading to conflict and/or the rest of the group re-
frained from collaborating anymore and, therefore, dis-
engaging from the course progress.
The explicit role assignment introduced in 2018 and
2019 changed how the members’ groups collaborate.
Although they seem an insignificant action, role badges
completely changed the behaviour and interaction be-
tween the group members compared to 2017 sessions.
The students gained in commitment and responsibility
within the group, and they took the assigned role as a
challenge to finish the proposed projects. The role as-
signment also had the students hold their interest until
the end of the session.
As the most common group was of four people, the
four roles (coordinator, hardware, programmer, and
analyst) matched perfectly. Each member played a dif-
ferent role. For groups with three members, the role of
programmer and analyst fell to the same person. In the
case of the group of five, all took the programmer role
(pair programming). Students chose for themselves the
role. There were no conflicts in this regard, so PF/SF
never explicitly assigned roles to group members.
As a result, collaboration and interaction soared, to
the point where some students rose freely and ap-
proached other groups to offer their help concerning
their role. They internalised their role, and this affected a
greater involvement and interest in the tasks that each of
the group members performed. Everyone collaborated
because they had a well‐assigned role [22]. The badges
continually reminded each member what kind of parti-
cipation he/she had in terms of the collaborative deci-
sions and tasks to perform. Some participants warned
(positively) another member if he/she failed or did not
pay enough attention to perform a specific task.
Last qualitative remarks are related to the freestyle
project section. Compared to the first edition (2017), the
groups in 2018 and 2019 showed a more imaginative at-
titude when they combined sensors and actuators and
developed the associated code. Many of those projects
carried out in 2018 and 2019 were more complex than the
one proposed by the facilitators.
5 | C O N C L U S I O N S AN D B E Y O N D
SU CRE4 KIDS
The current study described the experiences of the
Sucre4Kids project over the past three years in a course to
promote computer science degrees among high‐school
students and to introduce them to computational thinking
and programming concepts using tangible elements and
social interaction. Our experiences revealed that touching
TRILLES AND GRANELL
and interacting with tangible elements [5] definitively
boost students’ commitment to learn to code. If, in addi-
tion, tangible elements are accompanied by the explicit
assignment of roles and social interaction, we observed
that the students’ motivation and engagement increased
notably. With the role designation, students knew their
tasks perfectly and, therefore, acquired responsibility and
the feeling of being part of a group to achieve the guided
and freestyle projects collaboratively.
Despite the positive experience, some technical issues
sometimes hindered the proper development of the
course. The web‐based application for block‐based pro-
gramming (Section 3.1.2) required an initial configura-
tion on each desktop computer to transfer the code to the
Arduino board. This meant an extra step for students,
which was entirely alien to the content of the course.
Related to this, the communication between the Arduino
board and the desktop computer was physically done via
a USB cable, establishing a virtual connection to a COM
port of the desktop computer. Our experience shows that
this communication setup is quite problematic and leads
to sporadic communication failures between the com-
puter and the Arduino, disrupting the students’ focus on
their programming activities.
We are planning technical alternatives to overcome
these issues [37]. The redesigning of Sucre4Kids project
includes the adoption of the Internet of Things paradigm,
which provides improvements over the limitations ex-
posed above, and the establishment of wireless con-
nectivity, eliminating USB cables as points of failures. In
particular, the existing microcontroller is replaced by the
particle microcontroller [24] that adds a rechargeable
battery and supports wireless connectivity. This en-
hanced connectivity allows to create mesh networks
with neighbouring microcontrollers, and remotely facil-
itates the code update process without cables. All of
these features make the new core more versatile and
autonomous, gaining in agility in the sessions since
dependencies with the desktop computer and the
programming tool disappear.
Finally, an interesting aspect to explore and vali-
date in future interventions is the possibility to create
communication between microcontrollers using the
mesh networks feature. In this way, variables and
functions can be shared among groups of students,
which would unlock new learning dynamics and social
interactions. For example, network‐aware micro-
controllers may enable cross‐group projects with ga-
mification formulas, such as collaboration and
competition, between groups in the same classroom,
giving rise to new projects that bring together the idea
of computational action.
| 1501
ACKN OWLEDGMENTS
Sergio Trilles was funded by the postdoctoral programme
PINV2018—Universitat Jaume I (POSDOC‐B/2018/12);
Carlos Granell was funded by the Ramon y Cajal Pro-
gramme of the Spanish government (Grant Number:
RYC‐2014‐16913).
ORCID
Sergio Trilles http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9304-0719
Carlos Granell http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1004-9695
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Sergio Trilles has a Ph.D. in Integra-
tion of Geospatial Information from
the Jaume I University in 2015 and he
is currently a postdoctoral fellow at
University Jaime I, holding a Juan de
la Cierva‐Incorporación fellowship. His research
lines are centred on geospatial fields such as the
Internet of Things (sensors), interoperability, geo-
processing or web mapping. He is author of more
than 50 journal and conference peer‐reviewed
publications.
Carlos Granell currently holds a 5 year
Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship
at the UJI of Castellón, Spain. Before
rejoining GEOTEC in 2014, he worked
for 3 years as a post‐doc in the Digital
Earth and Reference Data Unit of the European
Commission's Joint Research Centre, and was a post‐
and predoctoral researcher during the period
2003–2010 at the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón,
from which he holds a Ph.D. (2006). His research
interests lie in multidisciplinary GIS, model web, and
spatial analysis & visualisation.
How to cite this article: Trilles S, Granell C.
Advancing preuniversity students' computational
thinking skills through an educational project
based on tangible elements and virtual block‐based
programming. Comput Appl Eng Educ. 2020;28:
1490–1502. https://doi.org/10.1002/cae.22319