How to Determine the Educational Usability of Programming Tools? Teachers Perspectives
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Programming tools (PTss) have a pivotal role in teaching and learning in computer science education: they influence how teachers design their lessons, but also centrally shape students’ perception of (learning) programming. Over the years, a large number of PTss have been developed and further ones are likely to emerge. However, with this multitude of very different PTss, how can teachers select suitable and useable ones for their lessons? To evaluate the educational usability of a PT for their lessons teachers should apply their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). So far, though, it’s not clear what concrete knowledge facets teachers need to evaluate the suitability and usability of PTss and how much they are already using this knowledge in their lesson planning. In this article we 1) operationalize theoretically which knowledge facets teachers need to evaluate the suitability and usability in light of existing models and 2) explore empirically which of these facets they actually use to evaluate PTss. For this, we surveyed 80 in-service computer science teachers in Germany. The qualitative analysis of the data reveals that teachers consider not only technical aspects of the PTs itself, but also take into account student needs, school infrastructure, the availability of additional resources and even ethical and legal issues. These findings provide a valuable first step in making the operationalization and usage of this specialised form of teaching knowledge more specific.
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7203819125