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Table 6 Tensions in student practices, from variable- and case-based analyses

From: “Smart” greenhouses and pluridisciplinary spaces: supporting adolescents’ engagement and self-efficacy in computation across disciplines

Tension

Clara & Gabriella

Faith & Taylor

Self-efficacy connection

1. engagement via fun and camaraderie

vs.

disaffection per anxiety and stress

• Laughing about minor mistakes

• Focus on aesthetics

• Checking partner’s work

• Helping paired-group

• Playing with materials, talking about socializing

• Providing emotional support

• Concerns about grade-anxiety and test-stress

emotive (for expectational change)

2. practices as sequential

vs.

simultaneous

• Began with one set of canonical practices per day

• Ended with “different mixes”, operationalized as “10 min [at a time]”

• Connected engineering with science, but not computing

• Worked in parallel (e.g., one completing a science worksheet, other writing code)

generality (for expectational change)

3. prior experience with coding

vs.

present application

• Previous computational experience in grade six class and after-school club

• Minimal use of TA, who nonetheless used Socratic questioning amidst errors

• Rapidity of coding, at expense of consistency with science

• Previous computational experience in grade six class only

• Frequent use of TA, often in a confirmatory manner

• Quickness to claim broken items, rather than engage in troubleshooting

social (for personal change)

4. disciplinary

pre-conceptions vs. expansion

• from technology-only (“computers”), to biology (“plants”) and engineering

• from a computer-science orientation towards apps, to a more interdisciplinary orientation

• previously had “never really thought they [scientists] used much of it [coding]”

• from math, technology, and physics to earth & space science (“meteorologists”), biology, and chemistry

social (for personal change)