Engaging Children and Parents to Code Together Using the ScratchJr App

Educational tools and apps designed to teach coding and computational thinking to children have risen in popularity in the last several years. However, there is little research that explores how families with young children code together in informal environments. This study explored how children ages 5-7 and their parents jointly program with the ScratchJr app. N=58 families attended ScratchJr Family Days, single-day events for families to engage in an interactive ScratchJr session. Three additional parent-child dyads participated in a follow-up observational study, in which they were videotaped while working on an open-ended ScratchJr activity. Findings indicated that parents reported engaging as observers and coaches, whereas children engaged as planners. There were moderate, positive associations between children's prior coding interest and their engagement in debugging, as well as between children's role as playmates and their engagement in the design process. Implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.