The effects of programming interventions in early childhood: A meta-analysis
Bianca A. Simonsmeier, Kristin Kampmann, Jacqueline Staub, Ronny Scherer · Learning and Individual Differences · 2025
While recent meta-analyses confirm the positive effects of programming interventions in school and university students, it is still unclear whether teaching programming in early childhood settings is similarly effective. Our meta-analysis clarifies this issue by synthesizing the effects of programming interventions for 3- to 7-year-old children. Moreover, we propose and employ a taxonomy for instructional approaches commonly used in programming interventions to systematically analyze the relevance of instructional design. The results from 25 early childhood studies and 82 effect sizes showed a medium overall effect of d = +0.73, 95 % CI [0.51, 0.96]. Programming interventions effectively enhanced programming knowledge, computational thinking, mathematics knowledge, and cognitive skills. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of unplugged over screen-based activities and interventions, including robotics, over those using other program outputs. The results provide educators with valuable information about instructional methods. The taxonomy can guide researchers and educators in implementing instructional strategies when teaching programming. Educational relevance statement The current meta-analysis extends the current understanding of programming interventions by summarizing the existing body of literature on the effectiveness of programming interventions in young children . Since there exists a growing interest in teaching programming to young children , the results make a useful contribution to determine its effectiveness and to identify effective instructional characteristics. The found results indicate that programming interventions are indeed significantly effective in early childhood to enhance a variety of outcomes. Further, the analyses provide information that allow educators to implement age-appropriate programming interventions in educational settings (e.g., by using unplugged programming activities or including robotics).