Some Prerequisites for Teaching Thinking: Methodological issues in the Study of LOGO Programming

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Abstract
Various publications over the past several years have discussed the cognitive benefits of learning the programming language LOGO. This study represents an effort to experimentally evaluate the claims that learning LOGO can enhance children's general thinking skills. Two main points are made. The first is that much of the previous literature investigating the effects of LOGO is flawed due to failure to consider important methodological requirements. The importance of clearly defining training conditions, documenting programming mastery, and defining transfer measures (including underlying theoretical motivations and instrument reliabilities) is discussed, along with the consequences of failure to consider these issues. The second major point deals with the importance of considering the method of teaching LOGO and its effects on the development and transfer of general thinking skills from the LOGO environment to non-LOGO problems. A study attempting to meet the methodological concerns was designed to determine whether a structured teaching method was more effective than an unstructured, discovery-oriented method in achieving language mastery and transfer of general skills. Three groups of fifth graders (structured, unstructured, and control) varying in previous academic success level (successful or less successful) were included. The structured and unstructured groups were taught LOGO for 1 hr per day, 5 days per week, for 5 weeks. Measures of LOGO mastery showed significant differences favoring the structured group on items requiring anything more than basic knowledge of LOGO commands. Pretest and posttest measures of general thinking skills showed no differences between experimental and control students on tests of students' independent performance, although one test measuring performance in a prompted testing situation showed significant differences favoring the experimental group. Implications of these results for teaching general thinking skills are discussed.