Development and Validation of a Representational Fluency Test for Primary School Students As part of a multiyear project that aims to develop digital learning environment offering adaptive remedial interventions for primary level students, we present the design of a new instrument that tests the representational fluency of primary school students. Representational fluency refers to learnersu0027 ability to reason and work among multiple representations. In this article, we identify the competences that the Representational Fluency Test (RFT) has to cover, in the light of literature, local curriculum, previous national exams, and discussions with educators. Next, we design the questions of the test following these competences. In addition, we report a pilot study that we administered to test and validate the RFT. We present the results of the pilot study and also discuss the next stages of our project that include testing and using our proposed RFT. The longterm goal of our project is to develop an intelligent system that provides remedial interventions customized for each student with representational fluency difficulties. We expect that our work can contribute toward a more personalized education at the primary school level.

The effects of coding on childrens planning and inhibition skills Abstract   Computational thinking (CT) and the coding element of it are progressively entering in the primary school curriculum worldwide. Yet, little is known about the effects of these skills on childrenu0027s cognitive development. In a clusterrandomized controlled trial, we examined how 1stgrade childrenu0027s gains in coding skills that follow instructional intervention transfer to two important executive functions (EFs): planning and response inhibition. Onehundred seventynine (179) first graders from 5 schools and 10 class groups, with no prior experience of coding, were randomly assigned to an experimental (coding, 5 classes) or control (standard STEM, 5 classes) instructional condition. The experimental intervention involved 8xe2x80xafh of coding activities (two weekly lessons for 4 weeks), through the Code.org platform. Children in the control group were exposed to standard STEM instruction. Four coding tasks drawn from Code.org, two standardized planning tasks (Elithorn maze test and Tower of London, ToL, test) and two standardized response inhibition tasks (NEPSYII inhibition subtest and numerical Stroop), were used to assess childrenu0027s skills at the pretest and posttest (after the instructional intervention). To measure retention, the same skills were also assessed for 44 children from the experimental group 5 weeks from the posttest (follow up). The results show that practice with coding through Code.org not only improved measurably childrenu0027s ability to solve coding problems, but also their EFs, increasing the time children spent planning, their ability to solve standardized planning tasks, and to inhibit prepotent responses. Such findings add to the still limited literature on the cognitive effects of coding, deepening our understanding of the positive implications of introducing Computational Thinking early in the school curriculum.