From Hanging Out to Figuring It Out: Socializing Online as a Pathway to Computational Thinking
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866915770296958976 |
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| author | Shorey, Samantha Hill, Benjamin Mako Woolley, Samuel C. |
| author_facet | Shorey, Samantha Hill, Benjamin Mako Woolley, Samuel C. |
| contents | Although socializing is a powerful driver of youth engagement online, platforms struggle to leverage engagement to promote learning. We seek to understand this dynamic using a multi-stage analysis of over 14,000 comments on Scratch, an online platform designed to support learning about programming. First, we inductively develop the concept of "participatory debugging" -- a practice through which users learn through collaborative technical troubleshooting. Second, we use a content analysis to establish how common the practice is on Scratch. Third, we conduct a qualitative analysis of user activity over time and identify three factors that serve as social antecedents of participatory debugging: (1) sustained community, (2) identifiable problems, and (3) what we call "topic porousness" to describe conversations that are able to span multiple topics. We integrate these findings in a theoretical framework that highlights a productive tension between the desire to promote learning and the interest-driven sub-communities that drive user engagement in many new media environments. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_03017 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | From Hanging Out to Figuring It Out: Socializing Online as a Pathway to Computational Thinking Shorey, Samantha Hill, Benjamin Mako Woolley, Samuel C. Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction Although socializing is a powerful driver of youth engagement online, platforms struggle to leverage engagement to promote learning. We seek to understand this dynamic using a multi-stage analysis of over 14,000 comments on Scratch, an online platform designed to support learning about programming. First, we inductively develop the concept of "participatory debugging" -- a practice through which users learn through collaborative technical troubleshooting. Second, we use a content analysis to establish how common the practice is on Scratch. Third, we conduct a qualitative analysis of user activity over time and identify three factors that serve as social antecedents of participatory debugging: (1) sustained community, (2) identifiable problems, and (3) what we call "topic porousness" to describe conversations that are able to span multiple topics. We integrate these findings in a theoretical framework that highlights a productive tension between the desire to promote learning and the interest-driven sub-communities that drive user engagement in many new media environments. |
| title | From Hanging Out to Figuring It Out: Socializing Online as a Pathway to Computational Thinking |
| topic | Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.03017 |