Informatics in Education

Tables are fundamental tools for handling data and play a crucial role in developing both computational thinking (CT) and mathematical thinking (MT). Despite this, they receive limited attention in research and design. This study investigates pupils’ attitudes toward and approaches to working with tables in informatics education, focusing on the systematic development of CT. Specifically, we examine how primary school pupils (aged 8–10) think and act when engaging with two-dimensional frequency tables integrated into Programming with Emil. Our objective is to deepen the understanding of pupils’ cognitive processes when entering data into tables and interpreting their contents. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and analysed using qualitative inductive coding. Identified codes were then iteratively consolidated into broader categories and final themes. Key findings include: (a) the opportunity to solve a problem by programming a character is highly motivating for pupils, and (b) the appropriate integration of different contexts and concepts, such as tables, into an engaging programming environment has the potential to foster advanced cognitive skills beyond CT.

The paper discusses a certain type of competitions based on distance interaction of a participant with simulation models of concepts from discrete mathematics and computer science. One of them is the “Construct, Test, Explore” (CTE) competition, developed by the authors, the other is the Olympiad in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Informatics (DM&TI). The tasks presented in this paper are generally devoted to the concept of a graph isomorphism. Most of the tasks are verified automatically.