The perceptions of secondary school students regarding the learning of computer programming at Key Stage 4 in the revised curriculum in England - difficulties and prospects

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aditya

A national curriculum for computing became compulsory in English secondary schools in September 2014, replacing ICT with computer science. This shift created learning challenges for teachers and students lacking programming knowledge and experience. The study examines teaching computer programming at Key Stage 4 (year 10–11), the impact on learning, students’ perceptions of computing and performance, and measures to improve instruction. Surveying 300 students, results show key difficulties include limited time, viewing programming as “difficult,” and insufficient understanding, while schools support adoption but must address shortages of specialised teaching staff.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Background and curriculum changes

Need for programming in KS4

Study focus and research question

The perceptions of secondary school students regarding the learning of computer programming at Key Stage 4 in the revised curriculum in England: difficulties and prospects. Almabrok Musa ALMDAHEM [a.almadahem@wlv.ac.uk](a.almadahem@wlv.ac.uk) Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Computer Science University of Wolverhampton, England, UK DOI: 10.21585/ijcses.v7i1.147 Abstract A national curriculum for the study of computing became compulsory in English secondary schools in September 2014, replacing the study of information and communications technology with computer science (CS). This posed difficulties for teachers and students who did not have knowledge or experience of programming. This study was designed to investigate and gain a critical understanding of the teaching of computer programming (CP) at Key Stage 4 (KS4; year 10-11) of the CS curriculum, including assessing the impact of learning CP and students'perceptions ofCS and their overall performance in the subject. Furthermore, the study investigated the measures to improve the teaching of CP and the factors that have an impact on the effective teaching of the CP curriculum. The study sample comprised 300 students. The findings indicate that the main difficulties the study found that the issues faced by students learning programming include a lack of time, the perceptions that it is a ‘difficult’ subject and students’ insufficient understanding of programming. The findings also suggest that schools have made efforts to overcome these challenges and are willing to adopt programming as a subject and to help, encourage, develop and improve students’ ability to learn programming; however, the results indicate that it is essential that schools address the shortage of teaching staff with specialised knowledge of CP. This study revealed that three factors can help to overcome the difficulties where the three factors are for students (perceptions towards learning and teaching programming, benefits, and support) . The findings of this study will be useful for students who are learning programming in secondary schools. Keywords: programming, National Curriculum, Key Stage 4(KS4), secondary school, difficulties, and learning. 1. Introduction A 2012 report by the Royal Society advocated replacing the existing information and communications technology (ICT) curriculum in England with a wider-ranging subject to be known as ‘computing’(The Royal Society, 2012) . In 2014, the Department for Education (DfE) replaced England’s national curriculum for ICT for secondary schools with a revised computing curriculum (Moller and Crick, 2018) . Computing is now a compulsory part of the national curriculum for schools and provides important learning opportunities. The revised computing curriculum has three strands: computer science (CS); digital literacy (DL); and information technology (IT) (Lau, 2017) at Key Stage 4 (KS4; year 10 - 11) (see Figure 1) . As computers are becoming an inseparable part of everyday life, the need and demand for computer programming (CP) is increasing rapidly. England was one of the first countries to take the initiative to integrate CS into its school curriculum (Passey, 2017) . CS is the study of both software and hardware design, including principles of information processing and how digital systems work. In the CS element of the curriculum, students are taught the basic principles of programming, how digital systems work, and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. For many students, programming is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of CS. Several computing education researchers have sought to establish the causes of students’ programming difficulties and have identified the lack of knowledge as one of the contributors (Sentance, Waite, and Kallia, 2019). Computer programming is becoming increasingly important to many societies around the world, and is a skill required by most educational institutions. Ho

FAQs

What curriculum change in England affected learning of computer programming at KS4?

In September 2014, England made computing compulsory and replaced the former ICT curriculum in secondary schools with a revised computing curriculum that includes computer science and programming.

What main difficulties did the study identify for KS4 students learning programming?

Students faced a lack of time, perceptions that programming is “difficult,” and insufficient understanding of how to program.

What measures and conditions did the findings suggest for improving programming teaching?

Schools made efforts to support students’ adoption of programming, but effective improvement requires addressing shortages of teaching staff with specialised knowledge of computer programming.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aditya