Primary school teachers’ experiences of professional development in teaching coding

Abstract

This is a qualitative study that centres on teachers’ experiences during development and their understanding of the development process to teach coding as an innovative subject in the South African primary school curriculum. It further seeks to determine how the development program is comprehended by teachers in a professional development programme in three public primary schools in the Western Cape. A constructivist perspective guided by a conceptual framework is employed to develop and support this study. It further employs an interpretive paradigm as it taps into teachers’ experiences, and use in-depth semi-structured interviews to construct and interpret the data gathered. Findings suggests that teacher experiences of the training received in teaching coding contributes widely to successful implementation of the subject. Concerning this study, the outcomes does not fully reflect the intended ideals and thus recommendations are suggested to facilitate a more suitable development programme. This study further contributes to a deeper understanding of teacher motivations and experiences of their training and how it contributes to future implementation of an innovative subject into the primary school curriculum.