Teacher’s perceptions and readiness to teach coding skills: A comparative study between China, Finland and Singapore

While many countries have recognized the importance of computational thinking and coding skills and are implementing curricular changes to introduce coding into formal school education, a necessary and critical success factor involves the preparation of and support for teachers to teach coding. Thus, understanding the perceptions of teachers towards coding is most important, together with knowing the kinds of support they received, and their readiness and challenges to teach. The purpose of the current study is to compare teachers’ attitudes towards the importance of ICT skills and coding skills in Finnish, Chinese and Singapore K-12 schools. The findings indicate that Singapore and Finnish teachers believe that coding is useful even if students will not work in ICT jobs while Chinese teachers are undecided. China and Singapore have more positive views towards how to prepare for future-ready learners. Copyright © 2018 The Hong Kong Jockey Club.