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“It’s Good for Plugging-in a Budgie”: Children Talking
About Computers
Alan Jervis
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association
Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September
2005
School of EducationUniversity of ManchesterOxford RoadManchesterM13 9PLTel: 0161 273 3409e-mail : [email protected]
It’s Good for Plugging-in a Budgie: Children Talking about Computers
Abstract
It is now almost 20 years since Hughes, Brackenridge and McLeod, writing in 1987, lamented the rapidly passing opportunity to investigate 'computer-naïve' children and examined the views of seven year-old children on their experience of computers, their attitudes towards them, their conceptions of how computers function and whether there was sex-stereotyping in those views. Little further work has been done in the area of children's thinking about computers and this paper will report on the start of work to remedy this.
It will concentrate on one of the above aspects; children's views of how computers function. Given the fascination that computers appear to hold for children and the amount of time that children spend exploring and using computers, it would be surprising if they had not developed sophisticated conceptions and mental models in this area. Understanding of such perceptions may serve to inform teaching and learning in ICT and other subjects.
This paper reports the findings from two sets of interviews of seven- and eleven-year old children carried out in December 2002 as part of a longitudinal study of the development of children’s thinking about computers.
It is clear that, despite twenty years of rapidly developing technology, children’s ideas about the working of computers remain at or below the level of those of the children studied earlier and that no development of these conceptions takes place between the ages of seven and eleven. It is suggested that these concepts were formerly acquired during the process of learning to program; an activity that has low importance in current curricula.
Children construct the computer as a device which functions (or should function) instantaneously and which knows everything. Their conceptions about function are hazy but appear to include ‘tangle of wires’, ‘plugs’ and ‘chips’ to serve as metaphors for computer function.
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1.0 Introduction
The work reported here has its origins in speculations raised by the DfES
Circular 4/98 (DfES, 1998) and the Teacher Training Agency’s document
‘Qualifying to Teach’ (2003). These documents were intended to specify
the standards that newly qualified teachers completing a course of
postgraduate training (the PGCE) should reach. They laid out a
requirement that:
“Those to be awarded Qualified Teacher Status must, when assessed, demonstrate that they: …. know, for their specialist subject(s), pupils’ most common misconceptions and mistakes;” (Circular 4/98, Annex A: 4, section k)
These ‘Standards’ were generic, i.e. they applied to teachers of all
subjects included in the KS3/4 National Curriculum, including the subject
then known as ‘IT’ (Information Technology – later rechristened ICT –
Information and Communication Technology in the 1999 revision of the
National Curriculum). This led to speculation by teachers, trainers and
trainees about the nature of ‘misconceptions’ in ICT.
It rapidly became clear that, unlike Science and Mathematics (see e.g.
Driver, Guesne & Tiberghien, 1985; Hart, Johnson, Brown, Dickson &
Clarkson, 1989), there had been no research into children’s
misconceptions in ICT and, indeed little work on children and computers in
general, beyond the impact of computers and ICT in the classroom. It was
equally clear that, before issues of children’s misconceptions could be
examined and tackled, much more would need to be known about
children’s thoughts, beliefs and conceptions about computers. The early
publications of Mawby, Clement, Pea & Hawkins (1984), Turkle (1984) and Alan Jervis Page 3 of 29 University of Manchester
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Hughes, Brackenridge & McLeod (1987) raised many fascinating questions
which remain un-researched and unanswered. This paper reports on part
of a small project aimed at examining these questions, both in general and
in the light of 15-20 years of children using computers both in school and
in wider society and of computers and digital electronics forming a far
more important part of everyday life than even the most optimistic of
forecasters would have dared claim twenty-five years ago.
One of the principal concerns articulated by these early researchers was:
“We have no baselines against which future developments may be interpreted, and if no research is carried out in this field very soon the opportunity for studying comparatively ‘computer-naive’ children may be lost completely.” (Sage & Smith, 1983: 26)
Mawby et al suggest:
“In the not-too-distant future, computer use will be so pervasive in our society that the idea of a computer-naïve child will seem antiquated, no more understandable than a school-aged child who does not know about books.” (Mawby et al, 1984: 3)
Lepper (1985: 2) expressed the concern that: “If we do not act quickly, we
may miss the ‘research window’ on microcomputers as we did with
television.” and Hughes et al add:
“We are embarked on a period of very rapid technological change and by the end of the century information technology in its many different forms will have had a highly significant impact on many aspects of children’s lives”. (Hughes et al, 1987: 10)
and “it becomes well-nigh impossible to imagine what ideas and attitudes children – or adults for that matter – will have in 16 years time.” (ibid: 33)
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Arguably, that position was reached some years ago and all children
studied currently are likely to have a rich, though varied, experience of
computer use.
2.0 Background
2.1 Introduction
“If you open a computer … you see no gears that turn, no levers that move, no tubes that glow. Most often, you see some wires and one black chip. Children faced with wires and a chip, and driven by their need to ask how things work, can find no simple physical explanation. … the workings of the computer present no easy analogies with objects or processes that came before, except for analogies with people and their mental processes. In the world of children and adults, the physical opacity of this machine encourages it to be talked about and thought about in psychological terms.” (Turkle, 1984: 22)
In subjects such as Science and Mathematics, the rationale for studying
children’s thinking is the belief that, by understanding how children think
about complex concepts, and the beliefs that they hold before entering
formal teaching, learning can be enhanced and any misconceptions that
they hold can be tackled via the introduction of cognitive conflict (see e.g.
Driver, 1983). Mawby et al and Hughes et al see this as a function of their
research:
“If child novice models of computer functioning are badly flawed, the models will impede rather than support their learning about and with computers; that is, children may acquire low level skills, but the deeper conceptual understanding that allows skills to develop and generalize may elude them.” (Mawby et al, 1984: 2)
This section will summarise important ideas from three very significant
contributions to the literature on children’s thinking about computers
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(Mawby, Clement, Pea & Hawkins, 1984; Turkle, 1984 and Hughes,
Brackenridge & McLeod, 1987).
It must be borne in mind that computers and the uses to which they can
be put have changed beyond recognition in the time since the early
studies were carried out. Both of the 1984 studies examined atypical
groups of children, who were of interest because they had a higher than
usual exposure to computers (Mawby et al examined a group of children
at a very well resourced New York private school and Turkle’s
conversations were with adults and children who had an unusually long
experience of computers and electronic devices).
2.2 Describing Computers
According to Mawby et al, children were confused about the boundaries of
the term ‘computer’ and were prone to describe anything which was
‘electronic’ or indeed merely ‘electrical’ as a computer. However, an
interesting common linkage was some sense of ‘automaticity’: most of the
objects classified as ‘computers’ were in some sense able to automate
operations in response to a command, even if such a ‘command’ was
merely pressing a switch, but there is a theme of computers as objects
that can, even in a limited way, act by themselves.
“Airplanes come in all shapes and can be described in all sorts of ways, but there is no conceptual problem in describing what they do: they fly. There is no equally elegant, compelling, or satisfying way of defining the computer by its function. You can say ‘it computes’, and a computer scientist can set up a conceptual frame of reference in order to define ‘the computable’. But even then, what has been isolated as ‘the essential computer’ presents no easy analogies with other objects in the world.” (Turkle, 1984: 272)
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In common with the children in the work of Mawby et al discussed in the
previous section, the children in Turkle’s study also had great difficulty in
assigning objects to the category ‘computer’, choosing to include
electronic toys, video games and electronic learning aids such as ‘Speak
and Spell’. The task has become no easier in recent years: ‘a computer’
usually conjures an image of a beige box, with keyboard, screen and
mouse. However, advances such as the use of a computer-derived
operating system in a ‘Smartphone’ and other aspects of convergence of
digital technologies make the task much harder, if not meaningless in the
world of 2005.
Children’s descriptions of computers almost always imply some element of
apparent ‘free will’ or automaticity: computers for many of the children
are defined by a perceived ability to act according to their own wishes, or
to exhibit behaviours which are not always predictable. At no point in her
description does Turkle suggest that children had any direct experience of
the components of the computer and, in this respect at least, the children
studied appeared rather less technologically sophisticated than those in
the concurrent study of Mawby et al discussed previously. These issues
would be further blurred by images in the current popular culture such as
the computer HAL in ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ (Clarke, 1968), and robots
such as C3PO and R2D2 in ‘Star Wars’ (Lucas, 1977) and Marvin in ‘The
Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ (Adams, 1979) where the robots clearly
have powerful computing abilities, are humanoid in shape, and play roles
as important as any of the human characters.
In the Hughes et al study (conducted in 1983-5), many children drew
identifiable models of computers such as the ZX Spectrum, though “for
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most of the children, though, a computer consisted of a keyboard (with a
large number of buttons) attached by wires to a TV screen” (Hughes et al,
1984: 13). Some of the younger children exhibited the confusion
remarked earlier and drew robots such as R2D2. The drawings
reproduced by the authors which show screen displays all have content
and these offer some insight into what children thought computers were
used for, showing arithmetic and games.
2.3 How computers work
The basic nature of a computer, that it manipulates data according to
rules that preserve meaning is highly abstract:
“While a keyboard may be likened to a typewriter, a monitor to a TV, a disk drive to a cassette player or phonograph, the central processing unit is more like a brain. Like the brain, it is not normally visible and is best known to us by what it does. Since it is out of sight, will children even mention it as part of the computer ? Or does their conception of a computer not involve computation?” (Mawby et al, 1984: 18)
Mawby et al (1984) found that few children gave a clear response to
questions in this area: “it runs by electricity”, “it works by plugging it in”,
“you press buttons”, “there are lots of wires and batteries”, “there are
engines inside and a computer brain”. Once again, they note that younger
children mentioned only the visible parts, though one said that the
‘memory’ is what distinguishes the computer from less capable machines
such as the typewriter or the television. One said “It works by wires
inside” and others “accurately described the disk drive, screen and
keyboard, but appeared not to recognise that anything else is necessary
for computer functioning.” (p 19). Few children mentioned any processes
between pressing the keys and material appearing on the screen. Even
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older children, in second interviews towards the end of the study could say
little with certainty or accuracy: “I think you push buttons…”, “There is a
whole bunch of stuff and little things inside”, “The computer knows
everything that’s on it…”. A few children spoke of “memory banks” and
two of “chips”. The authors conclude that, even by the end of the study
when the children had a very extensive experience of computers
compared with the majority of children of the time, “In general, the inner
workings of computers are largely unknown to these children”.
In Turkle’s view:
“Most considerations of the computer concentrate on the ‘instrumental computer,’ on what work the computer will do. But my focus here is on something different, on the ‘subjective computer’. I look at the computer in a different light, not in terms of its nature as an ‘analytical engine’ but in terms of its ‘second nature’ as an evocative object, an object that fascinates, disturbs equanimity, and precipitates thought.” (Turkle, 1984:13)
As with the other studies described in this chapter, children studied by
Hughes et al (1987) were vague about how computers work: “you press
the buttons”, “you feed things into its memory”, “the tape – it orders the
computer around” (Hughes et al, 1987: 24). Younger children thought
that the inside of the computer contained “a wee engine”, “levers”,
“prints”, “a piece of paper with sums on it” and rather more puzzling: “a
wee brain ticket thing” (ibid: 24). Echoing Turkle’s interviewee children,
‘batteries’ and ‘electricity’ featured in children’s descriptions as did ‘plugs’
and ‘wires’.
2.4 Can computers think?
Mawby et al believe:
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“Children’s understanding of the relation between thinking and computer operations will affect their views on the powers and limits of computers. Their conceptions of the similarities and differences between people and computers will influence their interactions with the computer.” (Mawby et al: 31)
This study showed that children had mixed views about computers’ ability
to think, which probably reflected their own varied views of what it means
to ‘think’. Even young children associated thinking with reflective activity
and problem solving. They had a concept of ‘awareness’: “When you pick
up a pencil, you know that you’re picking up a pencil”, “It [the computer]
would never say ‘What am I doing here?’.” Several repeated the idea that
they don’t have a brain, “just wires and things”, “computers are not flesh
and blood”. Young children had a distinct view of ‘machine thought’:
“they connect wires to think”, “[they think] with little gears”. Older
children once again used their knowledge of programming to reflect their
view that “It looks like thinking but it’s not because they’re programmed
by a thinking person.”.
All children studied were unsure about whether computers were alive.
Turkle observes that children naturally tend to develop animistic models
and that the computer is an equivocal object in the classifications adopted
by them. She also points out that computers are far from unique in
provoking anthropomorphism. ‘Alive’, as has been noted previously
appears to embody some notion of independent or autonomous action:
children may, for example, tentatively classify clouds as ‘alive’ as they
display some of the characteristics of living things, but as they realise that
cloud movement is driven by wind, clouds move to the category of ‘not
alive’. The same process is followed by computers and electronic toys as
a child learns that they can be ‘controlled’ by removing the batteries.
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“Children construct theories that will help them situate the computer in the world of living and not-living things and neutralize what seems threatening about it.” (Turkle, 1984: 42).
Hughes et al are clearly worried about this aspect of children’s interaction
with computers:
“ … one of the most powerful (and dangerous) aspects of computers is the ease with which users can anthropomorphize them. It seemed likely that children would be particularly susceptible to this, given the frequency of claims that children are particularly prone to ‘animism’.” (Hughes et al, 1984: 12)
One of the particularly interesting features of this work is that the
interviewers questioned the children directly about what they term ‘the
children’s concept of the computer as an intelligent autonomous machine’.
This study interviewed the same children twice, separated by an interval
of 16 months. The researchers were surprised by an increase in the
number of children who held an animistic view of the computer, though it
accords with Turkle’s view that increasing contact with computers
increases the likelihood of children describing (and therefore, presumably
thinking of) computers in increasingly psychological language. On both
occasions, the majority of children were clear that computers couldn’t ‘do
things by themselves’, though a few pointed to random selection in
electronic toys like ‘Speak and Spell’ as evidence that they could. A
number of children felt that computers wanted the user to ‘feed things
into it, make it do things’ and ‘it wants to help you’ (ibid: 26), and in many
ways, the language used is reminiscent of the way children might discuss
the behaviour of a pet.
As was remarked by the researchers whose work is discussed in this
section, children were divided about whether computers ‘think’, which Alan Jervis Page 11 of 29 University of Manchester
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probably reflects their own uncertainty about what it means to think.
Remarks quoted show that, though almost half of the children in the first
interviews and 65% of those in the second believed that computers did
think, most of them were clear that they did not think in the human way:
‘We’re thinking, but they know the answer’, ‘We’re alive but they’re
electric’, ‘They’ve not got a brain, only a microchip’ (ibid: 27).
Almost all were sure that computers ‘remembered’: ‘… then they just have
to search their memory … it’s just sort of automatic’, ‘They don’t make
mistakes’, ‘it’ll remember sums, things like that’ (ibid: 27 and 29), though
many responses suggest that children did not distinguish clearly between
thinking and remembering.
The work described in this paper addresses these and other issues with a
group of children who have had a great deal more exposure to digital
technologies over a far longer period of time than those discussed here.
3.0 Methodology
This work formed part of a larger study which has previously been partially
reported (Jervis, 2003) and the methodology of the whole study is fully
detailed in that paper.
In outline, classes of seven- and eleven-year olds were asked to draw
‘spider diagrams’ of their views of computers, what is connected to them
and what is inside them. The nodes in the spider diagrams were drawings
rather than words.
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From analysis of the diagrams produced, those with the most developed
and fully–formed concepts were selected. In making this choice, literal
accuracy in terms of the technical correctness of their concepts was not
considered, merely the richness of the conceptions. In each school, the
six children who produced the most interesting diagrams were chosen for
further study.
Group interviews were arranged, and a semi-structured interview was
carried out with the researcher. In these interviews, questions were
selected to reflect, and allow comparison with, the works of Mawby et al
(1984) and Hughes et al (1987).
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 General
Interviews were carried out with two groups of six children, one group of
Y3 pupils in a primary school and one group of Y7 pupils in a secondary
school. They took place in December 2002.
The primary school is a suburban school of approximately 450 pupils with
19% of pupils having identified SEN. 4% of the pupils are eligible for free
school meals. The latest OfSTED report (2001) classifies the school as “a
very good school with some excellent features”, though it also describes
“some elements of information and communication technology” as
capable of improvement. At the time of the work reported here, there was
no computer suite and computers were distributed in classrooms
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throughout the school. All computers were networked and had Internet
access.
The secondary school is an urban community comprehensive school with
Technology School status. There are some 1000 pupils and the 2002
OfSTED report states:
“The overall social and economic background of pupils is below average. The overall level of attainment of pupils on entry to the school at age 11 is well below the national average. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs is a little smaller than usual, whilst that with statements of such need is broadly average. About 17 per cent of pupils come from families of ethnic minority heritage, … This is a good and improving school. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a substantial strength of the school.”
The report adds that the school is situated in a socially and economically
deprived area and the proportion of pupils entitled to free schools meals is
30%. The school has a low pupil: computer ratio (3:1), a highly networked
environment and easy and widespread Internet access. From entry into
the school, pupils make extensive use of ICT and have their own storage
area on the network. Pupils in this school are highly ‘network aware’ in
terms of the server/ client structure of the school’s ICT provision and in the
period studied, this was emphasised by frequent network failure and the
explanation of server inaccessibility for access restrictions to both pupils’
work and software.
4.2 Ownership of computers
All of the primary children and all but one of the secondary children had a
home computer which was either seen as their property, or to which they
had frequent access. (for simplicity, this will be referred to as ‘owned a
computer’). Perhaps reflecting the relative prosperity of the communities Alan Jervis Page 14 of 29 University of Manchester
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in which the schools were situated, the primary pupils had owned
computers for the longest (mean=4.2 years), with the secondary pupils
rather less (3.8 years). Four of the pupils had owned computers for six or
more years. This suggests that the ‘computer-naïve pupil’ postulated by
Sage & Smith (1983) does indeed no longer exist.
4.3 Home and School Use of Computers
Almost all pupils described using a computer for playing games and this
was their major home activity. Second to this came use of the computer
for graphics using packages such as ‘Paint’, ‘Print House’ and ‘Art Attack’.
This was reported at all ages, but was slightly more popular with the
younger pupils and with girls:
“printing pictures off … writing letters, thank you letters.” (Claire, 11)“You can make cards… invitations” (Mansoor, 11)“I’ve got … like … a ‘Print House’ disc … and you can load it in and print more different things …” (Lorna, 7)“I mostly … draw pictures. I’ve got ‘Art Attack.” (Hannah, 7)“If you like something really bad, you can go on the Internet and print it off and stick it on the wall” (Zorin, 11)
This supports Selwyn’s view about home uses of computers in his 1998
study (Selwyn, 1998). Facer et al (2001a), in a case study of 16 ‘medium-
high computer use families’ plus a questionnaire study of 855 children,
showed high levels of home access to a computer (70%, with 20% having
exclusive ownership, 83% having access to a computer outside school).
Often motivation for the purchase was not to support school work but to
offer an alternative to activities outside the home which were increasingly
perceived as more hazardous (“… compensatory leisure activity for young
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people, in which digital freedom is intended to compensate for physical
freedom…” Facer et al, 2001a: 19), though as parents and children
become increasingly aware of the ‘insidious nature of contact with others
through the Internet’ it may well be the case that this greater safety is
illusory.
All pupils who had home computers had some level of Internet access,
though it was clearly circumscribed by parental control. Some children
had been told that Internet access was an expensive resource and that
use was therefore circumscribed by the family budget and several pupils
reported that though in theory, they had access to the internet, it was
currently unavailable owing to technical difficulties in connecting.
“I just have to sneak on… I look up things … on TV programmes and things.”” (Tabitha, 7)
“I play on the links” (Ben, 7)
The investigation of Internet use by children was not an aim of this study
and these matters were not pursued further in the interviews.
There is a growing body of evidence from research (Comber et al, 2002;
Wellington, 2001; Kerawalla & Crook, 2002; Facer et al, 2001b; Selwyn,
1998) that school ICT, both as a subject and within the curriculum is
diverging markedly from the use that children make at home. This has
accelerated in recent years with the availability of a huge diversity of
digital devices which will interact with the computer (e.g. MP3 music
downloads). Even at the time of these interviews, there was a clear
emphasis on ‘fun’ graphics, games and communication which is generally
absent from school ICT.
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When asked about their use of computers in school, there was a marked
change of tone and the interviewees’ enthusiasm waned notably.
“Copying”, “maths” and “clip art” were listed as principal activities and
the sense of excitement and creativity vanished. It is clear that pupils
believed that the richness of computer use at home was far greater that
that at school.
4.4 What are computers ‘good at’?
This question was asked by Mawby et al (1984) and the younger (8 year-
old) children had a clear concept of them helping people with tedious
tasks (“controlling things”; “save people piles and piles of paper”, “keep
track of things”, “store recipes and phone numbers” etc.). In the primary
school, this occasioned some reflection, with answers being few and
hesitant. They inclined towards the non-creative end of the spectrum:
‘doing maths homework’, ‘learning to draw’ and ‘Maths and English’.
Secondary pupils were more positive and less tentative:
“Searching for things on the Internet” (Lauren)“E-mail” (Ben)“Making things work … like traffic lights” (Zorin)“To connect to different things … you can talk to different people” (Stevie)
plus many references to use for graphics and things such as thank-you
letters and party invitations.
As in the Hughes study (1987) this question was followed with “What are
computers not good at?” Children in that study mentioned that “they
break down”, “give the wrong answers”, “make work too easy”. The
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present responses all fell into one category: “don’t move very fast when
they’re broken”, “print very slowly”, “really slow at loading things”, “get
stuck all the time”. Though this was not the interpretation intended by the
researcher, it reinforced the earlier finding from the drawings in the study
(Jervis, 2003) that children construct a belief that computing and
computers should work instantly, which is perhaps engendered by the
representations seen in the media. There is clear disappointment and
frustration when they don’t and children are intolerant of the computer
problems taken for granted by adults (e.g. inability to print, to connect to
the Internet, driver problems, unexplained ‘crashes’ etc.)
4.5 Computer ‘Brains’ and Thinking
When the primary children were asked whether they believed that
computers can ‘think’, there was an unhesitating and unanimous ‘Yes’
response (‘They’ve got a big brain’). Equally unhesitating and unanimous
was the ‘No’ response to “Is their brain like ours?”. However, when asked
whether a computer’s brain was ‘better’ than ours, there was a great deal
more thought and only a few thought that it was ‘a lot bigger than ours’.
The older pupils were much more tentative, thinking longer before
producing a response: “No … (pause) … because electric makes them
work” (Lauren); “’cause you have to tell them what to do” (Stevie); “It’s
just chips” (Ben); “Chips are like the brain (Mansoor); “No … Yes … I think
they’re stupid” (Claire). In Hughes’ (1984) work, children were
interviewed twice, sixteen months apart and by the second time, 61% of
children believed that computers could think. 34% of the children who
believed that computers could think, believed that they thought as
humans do and 51% that they were better at thinking than humans.Alan Jervis Page 18 of 29 University of Manchester
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There was surprisingly little difference in the responses of the two age
groups to questions about the detailed workings of the computer.
Children mentioned “chips”, “motherboards”, “loads of little wires”, “all
those little … like … clip things”, “wires”, “like little battery things”,
“plugs”, “CD-ROMs”, “a projector thing to make the monitor work”.
The children’s responses to questions strongly suggest by context and
intonation that they do not share the mature point of view that plugs and
wires are essential connectors between the functioning components: their
concept is that the ‘plugs’ and ‘wires’ are essential active participants in
the computer’s function. Hannah (7) suggested “the plug gets energy for
the computer” and it is clear that she does not intend this judgement
merely as a factual statement that the computer must be plugged in
before it will work. References to ‘batteries’ echo Turkle’s suggestion that:
“Batteries have become some of the most frustrating objects in children’s lives … the mysterious batteries that grownups buy and take charge of. What are batteries to computers? Alice, a five-year-old, said, “They’re like their food.” (Turkle, 1984:54)
She adds (p 60):
“… even if one … breaks inside, all that the most persistently curious child finds is a chip or two, some batteries and some wire. Physically, these objects are opaque. They are frustrating.”
It is perhaps surprising that there is little difference between seven- and
eleven-year olds’ conceptualisations of the workings of the computer and
even more surprising that these concepts are certainly no more detailed
and sophisticated than those of the children studied almost 20 years
previously. Mawby et al (1984) report comments such as “you press
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buttons”, “wires and batteries”, “the wires inside”, “a whole bunch of stuff
and little things inside”, “machinery inside” and Hughes et al (1987): “you
press the buttons”, “wires”, “batteries”, “electricity”, “plugs”.
Perhaps the most striking thing is that the language used by children of
similar ages has not shifted even slightly from that used fifteen years
earlier. Indeed, if anything, it is less precise and it is suggested that this
may be case because children no longer program the computer.
4.6 The Issue of Programming
The early studies referred to previously were of children whose use of
computers was generally restricted to some form of programming (in
LOGO or BASIC) and games playing. Often, the games playing took place
following the laborious ‘typing-in’ of a listing from a magazine. In the
present study, the intention was to raise the issue of programming via the
question “How do computers know the things that they know?”
All of the children in both groups were vague about a number of concepts
that might be thought to be essential for a clear concept of a computer’s
function. Children did not distinguish between ‘load’ and ‘save’ and none
had any clear idea of what these processes involved. They would offer a
superficial response such as ‘save it on the disc’ without the ability to
articulate what this process involved.
There was confusion between storage and memory and little real idea of
how a computer ‘knows the things it knows’. The start-up and shut down
processes were not understood, nor even tolerated, offering again a
source of irritation at the computer’s slowness:
R: When you switch a computer on, what happens?Alan Jervis Page 20 of 29 University of Manchester
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Hannah: It has to load.R: What does it load?Hannah: Games and stuff. It takes about a minute to get all sorted.R: What’s it doing while you’re waiting?Hannah: Loading.R: How does it know about the games and the word processor?Hannah: [it comes from] the plug.
All the children were aware that software was needed for the computer to
work, though few had a clear idea of what software was and how it found
its way onto the computer:
“Is it from that disc thing?”“You have to load it so it can remember.”“You have to put it in the computer … like a CD”“You have to make something to double click on when you want to play the game.”“There’s like little square things when the computer comes on – you need CD-ROMs to get them on.”“You load it up.”“You can save it on the floppy disc.”“Everything it needs is put inside.”
Strikingly, at no point did any of the interviewees mention a program and,
even when prompted with the word, the seven-year olds were unable to
relate it to anything they knew about. One of the eleven-year olds
eventually volunteered that “It keeps the computer doing what it’s meant
to do” and another, “What makes the games go is the people that
invented them”. All of these children would have met programming in
LOGO and the eleven-year olds had done some control programming:
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“making things work … like traffic lights”; “plugging-in a budgie” [buggy?].
Hughes et al (1987) say:
“Direct questioning on the nature of a computer program revealed almost total ignorance or confusion: ‘Is it a TV programme about computers?’ and ‘I don’t know, I’ve never watched it.’” (Hughes et al, 1984: 24)
In the view of Mawby et al (1984: 9) “Understanding the concept of
program is at the heart of computer literacy”. As regular LOGO users,
Mawby’s interviewees had all heard the word ‘program’, though most had
a rather vague concept of its purpose “A program is whatever information
you put in”, “It makes things quicker to do” and “It saves time typing it
over each time” (Mawby et al, 1984: 10)
The children interviewed in the current study had far less experience of
programming that those in the studies of the 1980’s and it was clear that
not one of them thought of a computer in terms of a machine controlled
by a sequence of instructions.
4.7 Data Storage
The need to store data and how it might be achieved seemed equally
opaque to the children interviewed:
R: When you want to keep work, what do you do?Tabitha: [Store it] in a file.R: What do you think a file is?Tabitha: It’s where you keep your work.
R: Where does the computer keep it?Tabitha: On that disc. The square disc, floppy disc.
Responses from the older children included: “they save it in a file”, “in a
chip”, “inside the server” and ”it’s stored inside the actual hardware”. Alan Jervis Page 22 of 29 University of Manchester
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These children once again demonstrated their strong sense of a client/
server network, though one child believed that a separate server was
necessary for each application.
Enquiry about what happens to data and software when the machine was
switched off produced similar responses:
“It may be saved in the hardware.”“It could be in ‘My Work’ [the individual child’s storage area on the network] or something.”“It sends it into the memory.”
All children were unanimous that the computer did not ‘forget’ (lose data)
when switched off. Some of these responses raise the question of whether
the desktop/ file metaphor that underlies modern operating systems helps
or hinders the child’s’ thinking: if the child is satisfied that ‘in a file’ or ‘in
“My Documents”’ is a full response to the conceptualisation of storage, it
raises the question of whether this simple metaphor is assisting the child
or blocking deeper thinking.
In 1984, Mawby et al felt that “the precise location of information inside
the computers was an issue that concerned many of the children”, though
they add that about half of the children did not know and that many other
answers were vague or incomplete: “memory understands it”, “It goes
onto your disk”, “It goes through the computer brain”. In their study,
“Almost all the children could explain how to save a program… Most
children could not explain the internal process by which this was
accomplished.” (Mawby et al, 1984:14) and the same was noted
concerning recalling or loading a program from disc. (It is worth noting
that Mawby’s interviewees in 1984 used floppy discs for storage, whereas Alan Jervis Page 23 of 29 University of Manchester
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the children in Hughes’ study used the much less reliable cassette tape
recorders for storage.)
4.8 Animism
Following Hughes et al (1987), interviewees were asked whether they
thought that computers ‘wanted’ to do things. The secondary pupils were
hesitant: “No … yes … a bit” and, on consideration, felt that they did
“because they have no choice” or “because they’re made to do things”.
They younger children were at first unanimous that they did, but a short
silence followed as they considered the matter further. One said “Yes –
because it helps with spelling checks” but another felt that they didn’t
because “they want to help themselves … they want to play games with
themselves”. Another echoed one of Turkle’s interviewees (Turkle, 1984)
believing that as computers had no arms, they couldn’t possibly want to
do things. Another said “they can control themselves, they want to be like
us” which was followed by a round of rather nervous laughter. The older
children gave a swift and unanimous ‘Yes’ to the question “Do computers
make mistakes?”. Once again the consciousness of client/ server
architecture was clear: “Yes, if one of the servers is shut down,” and one
perceptive response was “I don’t think they make mistakes because they
only do what you tell them to.”
5 Conclusion
Alan Kay has been credited with the quotation “Technology is what was
invented after you were born” (COOLSchool, 2003) and for significant
numbers of the children interviewed, computers had been accessible to
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them in the home ‘for ever’. In the twenty years between the studies
described in the ‘Background’ section of this paper and the present work,
digital technologies have multiplied to a point where they seem
ubiquitous. They have been part of children’s lives for as long as they can
remember and children are among the most avid consumers of
technology. Perhaps the most surprising finding of this study is that there
has been no detectable increase in the understanding which children show
of computers; they speak of them in exactly the same language that was
used twenty years ago. They are no clearer on the nature of a computer
and they are just as uncertain about whether computers are ‘alive’, can
‘think’ and how they work.
It is arguable that children currently have less knowledge about computers
and their function than what Turkle describes as “Child programmers: the
first generation” (Turkle, 1984: 93). Subsequent developments mean that
this was also the last generation of child programmers. Programming is
no longer a high priority activity: it occurs to a small extent in the sector of
‘dull’ activity that is school ICT, and it would appear that, even when
taught, links are not made between programming and the essential nature
of a computer as a machine controlled by a sequence of instructions.
Walsh (2005) reports that even where LOGO is taught and appears to
meet the National Curriculum requirements, many children have little
direct experience of programming, but are instead using the built-in
programs as ‘games’:
“They used the built in programs as games without making any connection between LOGO programming and what they were accessing.” (Walsh, 2005:71)
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In the UK, little is taught about the functioning of a computer before KS4
(14-16 years old) and if Mawby et al (1984) and Hughes et al (1987) are
right in their belief (which parallels that of the ‘constructivists’ in science
education) that some clear model of the computer’s function is essential
for children to become fully fluent users of computers, this is an obvious
difficulty with present schemes of work.
Equally striking, and again reflecting what emerged in the earlier studies,
there is no increase in the sophistication of the child’s conception of
computers in the years between seven and eleven: it is not possible to
distinguish the language of the younger children from the older ones.
Hughes et al (1984: 32) note that:
“It is certainly true that many children in our study were puzzling over these notions ... Our impression, however was that it was our questioning, rather than the computers by themselves, which had instigated this puzzling - indeed, many children appeared to be thinking about these issues for the first time.”
The situation does not appear to have changed; it was clear from
children’s expressions and from their hesitancy that they had not
considered these issues previously.
Virtually all children had significant access to a computer at home and
their main activities were games playing, graphics work of various types
and (just emerging at that time) use of the internet, reflecting a greater
richness of experience than that obtained in school use of computers.
They found some difficulty in articulating functions that they thought
computers carried out well, but were clearly frustrated by the types of
hardware and software problems that adult users have come to take for
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granted. They construct the machine as operating instantly and infallibly
and are disappointed when computers fail to meet these expectations.
They are unclear about how a computer operates and use metaphors such
as ‘tangled wires’, ‘electricity’, ‘batteries’, ‘plugs’ and ‘chips’ to represent
the function of ‘computing’. In each of these cases, the metaphor stands
for more than the simple mechanical function of these components; for
the children studied, they are vital, active components which represent
the locations where the fundamental activity of computing takes place.
Few children studied currently have any concept of a program, still less of
a program as a sequence of instructions which defines the computer’s
activity. In general, they make little distinction between hardware and
software, though it might be argued that this represents a positive step in
the conception of the computer as an integrated machine.
A further area of confusion is between memory and storage; not
uncommon in adults also. Children have little idea about data, where it is
stored and how it is manipulated by the computer and there is little clarity
about the processes of starting up and closing down a computer, beyond
some frustration at the time the processes take. Where the programs and
data are stored whilst the computer is switched off are also linked to this.
Almost all children express a belief that, at some level, in some way,
computers can ‘think’, though most distinguish between human thought
and machine ‘thought’. This view is linked to an animistic view of a
computer: it appears able to act autonomously and, to most children, this
is a criterion of ‘thinking’. To some extent, this is reflected in views that
computers have an active internal ‘life’ in which they have a desire to do
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things ‘for themselves’ and play games with themselves. Once again, this
partially rests on the lack of understanding of a program as a controlling
entity.
Each of these issues is worthy of further study, but tentative indications
are emerging of the approaches that teaching might take in order to
tackle these conceptual difficulties. It remains to be seen whether such
teaching would improve children’s ability to work with computers and
information technology or merely satisfy an adult view that children
should know the ‘truth’ about how computers work.
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