Assessment of Code-Based Computer Applications on Cognitive Domain Development for Young Children

As computer programming for children is becoming popular in the 21st century, many countries in the world are adopting and making coding lessons a compulsory subject for young children from an early age. Zanzibar targets to have a proportion of 50% of pupils receiving coding lessons in 2050 while currently, less than 1% of pupils are receiving coding lessons. It is a good idea to inquire about and assesses the outcome of a coding lesson before putting a lot of money, time, and effort into it. Therefore, the objective of this research was to assess code-based computer applications for developing cognitive domains in young children. The study used mixed methods that are qualitative and quantitative design, a questionnaire distributed to all teachers teaching coding lessons, and a quasi-experimental design conducted for 76 pupils to measure their ability on Task Completion, Curiosity, and Striving within 15 minutes. Data were analyzed quantitatively and the result of the study shows that; preschool and primary school in Zanzibar uses the ScratchJr application to introduce programming concepts to pupils. Nevertheless, results from the quasi-experimental study show that when children learn to code, they eventually develop their cognitive domain as there were two quite contradictory results between the experimental and control groups. The study contributes to proposing a framework for studying coding lessons in preschool and primary schools in Zanzibar.