The role of programming in computing education for children has grown rapidly in recent years with the proliferation of specially designed programming tools, which is grounded on Seymour Papert’s theoretical work in Constructionism. Studies show that some children can develop computational thinking skills and practices with programming activities when learning with the tools through a well-design curriculum in elementary education (or primary education). However, existing studies may not completely address whether programming skills and computational thinking can be connected to the development of other generic skills, which are considered important to the learning and cognitive development of children. This study investigates the impact of programming on three learning competencies (creative thinking, critical thinking and problem solving) known as twenty-first century skills. The conceptual mapping between programming, computational thinking and the three learning competencies is presented. In a one-year intervention in a primary school, students were taught how to build interactive games through programming, and thus explored some basic computational thinking concepts in class. Our results show that children perceived a significant impact of programming on their learning competencies. Yet, the transferability of twenty-first century skills developed through computational thinking and programming may require a further study. Our study provides insights from children as primary respondents to help direct future research in the field of programming and computational thinking education and its potential impact on twenty-first century skills.

Advances in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) have the potential to transform learning. As research increasingly calls for transforming the human-GenAI relationship from mere tool use to a collaborative partnership, there remains a notable gap in exploring an important factor influencing this relationship: trust in GenAI, being crucial amidst growing concerns about disuse, misuse, and abuse of GenAI in learner-GenAI interaction primarily via language. This study seeks to address the gap by investigating university students’ trust in GenAI, its related factors of reliance and resistance, and boundary conditions in using GenAI for language learning. The research utilized an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. In Study 1, a proposed conceptual model within the stimulus-organism-response framework was quantitatively tested through structural equation modeling using a survey. Data were collected from 682 university students who used GenAI in language learning. Study 2 further confirmed the results through 40 qualitative interviews and refined the conceptual model by offering a deeper understanding of the relationships. The findings indicate that trust in GenAI is a significant factor in university students’ use of GenAI for language learning, with its influence on behavioral intention to use mediated through reliance and resistance. Moreover, forms of the five factors are identified: trust in GenAI, reliance, resistance, perceived risk, and actual use. Additionally, two boundary conditions are identified: perceived risk between trust in GenAI and reliance/resistance, and self-directed learning between behavioral intention to use and actual use. These findings provide theoretical, research, and practical implications regarding the appropriate use of GenAI in education.

The adoption of educational technology in teaching depends on how well a teacher accepts it. This paper draws on a technology acceptance survey of pre-service primary mathematics teachers in Hong Kong to study the factors influencing their technology acceptance. This work adopted a mixed method approach, in which quantitative data were collected through questionnaire survey from 234 pre-service teachers, where the data were analysed using structural equation modelling with a customised technology acceptance model. The qualitative data were also collected from 14 of these pre-service teachers through interviews, and analysed using the iterative coding process. The results show an overall positive attitude towards the use of educational technology, while perceived usefulness is more influential than perceived ease of use. Perceived ease of use is found to rely heavily on facilitating conditions rather than computer self-efficacy. We also found that subjective norms have an indirect influence on the usage and adoption in our context. Explanations for these findings are discussed, together with implications of the results. Our findings are intended to provide insights to policy makers about how to design teacher education programmes that address the demands of learning and teaching with educational technologies in Hong Kong and related contexts.