Developing Critical Understanding of Computing With the Raspberry Pi

This article describes a research project for exploring learning activities with Raspberry Pis in four school contexts in the UK. The aim of the project was to compare different learning designs, which had the shared objective of developing computational competencies, to investigate how these designs might simultaneously develop critical understanding of both the practices of Computing and students' own learning with respect to those practices. The study used a novel ‘before/after' implementation of Q methodology in combination with participant observations and reflective interviews with twenty-eight pupils. Findings suggested that where pupils were already predisposed to future involvement in Computing practices, working with Raspberry Pis did develop critical understanding, in ways that were less dependent on learning design. For those who had a more naïve or indifferent view of Computing, the pedagogy was most influential on how student perspectives developed, a pedagogy of expressibility being the key to supporting greater criticality.