Design of metacognitive scaffolding for k-12 programming education and its effects on students' problem solving ability and metacognition

While integrating programming content teaching into k-12 is an important way to cultivate students' higher-order thinking, pedagogies, and strategies of metacognitive scaffolding for younger elementary school students, programming learning at the class level is underexplored. This study proposes an application framework of metacognitive scaffolding based on the 4P Principle for scratch coding in different stages. Quasi-experimental research was conducted to explore whether metacognitive scaffolding for programming-related content had a significant impact on elementary students' problem-solving ability and their metacognition in programming learning in Wuhan, China. The results show that metacognitive scaffolding when teaching programming can cultivate students' problem-solving ability and metacognitive ability. The implications of the findings on designing and implementing metacognitive scaffolding activities of programming in authentic class environments are discussed.