Relationship between parents’ perceptions of programming education and their emotional and behavioral outcomes

Parents are assumed as one of the key figures to foster programming learning among children after school. However, little effort has been directed to the examination of parents’ perceptions and their consequent emotional and behavioral outcomes regarding programming education to date. This study attempted to explore how parents’ intrinsic motivation and positive affect would positively influence the relationship between their perceptions of programming education and involvement for providing a better learning opportunity to children. We collected 695 questionnaires from parents who brought their children to a one-day coding fair where they could experience the fun of programming. Results from Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that parents’ programming perceptions is positively related to their intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Mediation results suggested that parents’ perceptions such as understanding, support, and expectation can trigger their intrinsic motivation for encouraging children in programming learning and enhance their positive affect toward learning programming themselves, which consequently lead to increased attempts of parental involvement for the better guidance in technology use for children. Implications of the study were discussed. Copyright © 2019 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.