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CHI '26 · Best paper · full-paper review · confidence high

Starting From Scratch Again and Again: Tracing the Origins of High Schoolers’ Negative Perceptions of Block-Based Programming

Caryn Tran , Kristin Fasiang , Max Kanwal , Eleanor O'Rourke

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This is a strong qualitative CHI paper because it explains why block-based programming gets dismissed: not because blocks are inherently weak, but because students repeatedly encounter them in narrow, child-coded, and highly scaffolded forms. The paper’s real contribution is a grounded theory of how those beliefs form and how they can be disrupted through better sequencing, framing, and exposure to counterexamples.

Axes Lens

Rare contribution shape, typical evidence profile. The point here is not a score. It is to show what kind of claim the paper makes, and whether the evidence pattern is unusual or baseline in this 268 -review set.

Review Summary

Starting From Scratch Again and Again is a persuasive qualitative contribution because it reframes a familiar computing-education complaint into a richer HCI question about how learners construct meaning over time. Rather than asking whether blocks or text are better in the abstract, the paper asks how students come to interpret blocks as childish, limiting, or inauthentic. That shift is the paper’s main intellectual contribution. The authors show that students are not simply reacting to interface modality alone; they are building folk theories from repeated encounters with tools, classroom framing, peer discourse, and broader cultural narratives about what “real programming” looks like. In that account, blocks become devalued not because they are inherently weak, but because they are repeatedly bundled with simplified tasks, playful aesthetics, and low-status educational experiences. The evidence is well matched to this claim. A constructivist grounded theory study is appropriate for tracing how beliefs are assembled and revised, and the paper uses interviews with 17 high school students to surface recurring interpretive patterns. The resulting three folk theories are memorable and useful: that CS progress means accumulating languages, that blocks are for young children, and that limitations in activities are caused by the block modality itself. The discussion is especially strong in showing how these beliefs are reinforced by curricular sequencing and by the field’s own emphasis on block-to-text transition narratives. Just as important, the paper does not stop at diagnosis; it identifies how counterexamples such as dual-modality tools or more professional block environments can destabilize these assumptions. The main caution is scope. This is a small, self-selected U.S. sample based on retrospective self-report, so the work should not be read as a causal or universal account. Still, as a field-level explanatory contribution, it is highly valuable. It gives HCI and computing-education researchers a better vocabulary for understanding why learners dismiss certain tools and why interface judgments are inseparable from trajectories, institutions, and cultural meaning.

What Changed

Canon before

The dominant assumption treats block-based programming (BBP) as an introductory, simpler modality for young or novice learners that needs to be transitioned away from to text-based programming (TBP) for authentic or advanced learning. It emphasizes syntax mastery and language accumulation as primary progress markers in computing education.

Departure from common sense

The paper breaks the common assumption that programming modality itself (blocks vs. text) inherently signals power and sophistication, revealing that negative perceptions of blocks stem more from sequences of simplistic exposure, social and cultural cues, and tool design choices rather than intrinsic limitations of blocks. It challenges that progression in computing is defined mainly by shifting from blocks to text, showing beliefs can be malleable through exposure to counterexamples including dual-modality tools and professional-grade block environments.

Actual novelty

The study uniquely traces how high school students develop and revise folk theories about block-based programming through experiential, social, and cultural influences using constructivist grounded theory. It identifies three core folk theories shaping negative perceptions of blocks and shows how deliberate curriculum and tool design can expand notions of programming. The contribution is less a new artifact than a field-level explanatory account of how modality judgments are formed, stabilized, and sometimes revised over time.

Evidence

The paper’s claims are grounded in a constructivist grounded theory study of 17 U.S. high school students, with iterative semi-structured interviews, theoretical sampling, and memo writing. The discussion and conclusion connect the interview data to three recurring folk theories and to design implications about trajectories, modality, and legitimacy. The evidence is strong for interpretive and explanatory claims, but it remains qualitative, retrospective, and context-bound.

Limits

Method limits

This is a small, self-selected sample of 17 U.S. high school students, using retrospective self-report rather than direct observation or longitudinal tracking. The study does not experimentally isolate causal effects of specific tool features, so the account is best read as an interpretive theory of sense-making rather than a causal model.

Deployment limits

The implications for curriculum and tool design are promising but not yet validated through intervention studies. Translating the findings into practice will require testing whether trajectory-aware framing, professional visual programming examples, or redesigned sequences actually shift beliefs and persistence in real classrooms.

Boundary conditions

The findings are bounded by U.S. high school contexts and by students reflecting on prior K–12 experiences with programming tools. Beliefs may differ in other educational systems, age groups, or cultural settings, and the paper does not directly measure learning outcomes or persistence effects.

Position in field

This work advances HCI and computing education by reframing BBP perceptions as a developmental and sociocultural sense-making process rather than a simple preference for one interface over another. It pushes the field toward trajectory-aware design, where tools, instruction, and curriculum are treated as a connected pathway that students interpret over time.

Abstract

As K–12 computer science expands in the United States, students encounter a growing array of programming tools. Many introductory experiences use block-based environments, where programs are assembled by snapping together visual blocks instead of typing code. While these tools can support learning, high school students often perceive them negatively, even when they support the same underlying logic as text-based coding. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, we interviewed 17 high school students to trace how early experiences, tool design, peer discourse, and cultural framings shape these views. We find that students develop informal folk theories: that computer science is about accumulating languages, that block-based programming is for young children, and that limitations in programming activities stem from the block modality itself—beliefs that can shift when students encounter counterexamples. Our findings call for more deliberate design and sequencing of tools that are attentive to the meanings students construct as they progress, and that promote more expansive notions of programming beyond modality.