Scratch and creativity attitudinal assessment
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Jason Innes
Member
May 05, 2015
I have a particular interest in helping kids see computers as creative tools. So, as part of the kickoff of a Scratch unit I'm helping my 5th-grade child's teachers deliver, we gave the 44 5th-graders a brief attitudinal survey as a pre-assessment. The survey asked about their prior experience with Scratch, then asked them to what degree they agreed with the statements "I can use computers to make things" and "I could be a computer programmer."
Of the kids who reported that they had "a lot" of prior experience with Scratch, 92% "definitely" agreed with the statement "I can use computers to make things." Only 13% of the kids who reported no or little prior experience with Scratch felt this way. (More data at http://www.jasoninnes.com/?p=150)
Of course, we can't say that Scratch caused the kids to feel this way. But in the minds of these 5th graders at least Scratch is strongly associated with a view of computers as creative tools. This finding really made me happy and I just thought I'd share!
Does anyone have any experience with or pointers to attitudinal surveys or other instruments specifically designed to gauge kids' feelings about creativity and computers? (We will be conducting more assessments -- at least a final post-assessment -- so we could definitely use some ideas for improvements to the surveys.)
Of the kids who reported that they had "a lot" of prior experience with Scratch, 92% "definitely" agreed with the statement "I can use computers to make things." Only 13% of the kids who reported no or little prior experience with Scratch felt this way. (More data at http://www.jasoninnes.com/?p=150)
Of course, we can't say that Scratch caused the kids to feel this way. But in the minds of these 5th graders at least Scratch is strongly associated with a view of computers as creative tools. This finding really made me happy and I just thought I'd share!
Does anyone have any experience with or pointers to attitudinal surveys or other instruments specifically designed to gauge kids' feelings about creativity and computers? (We will be conducting more assessments -- at least a final post-assessment -- so we could definitely use some ideas for improvements to the surveys.)
