Older people and programming

The first study

Julia Korowski, XX2 century, based on UC San Diego: Geeking Out in the Golden Years

Philip Guo became interested in programming in high school. Now Go is a cognitive scientist from the University of California, San Diego (University of California, San Diego) – wants to share his passion with a new audience. And these are not schoolchildren or college students: Go is interested in people over 60 years old. The scientist conducted the first study on how older adults Learn Computer Programming (Older Adults Learning Computer Programming: Motivations, Frustrations, and Design Opportunities). He learned what motivates them, what hinders them and how to make the process more efficient and interesting.

Why teach the older generation to write code? Guo explains: the further you go, the longer your life expectancy increases. The number of elderly people is growing rapidly, and according to UN estimates, by 2030 they will make up 25% of the population of North America and Europe and 19% of the world's population. But most of the training programs are aimed at young people, and Guo wants to change that. He believes that the skills in demand should be available to more people. "Computers are everywhere, and digital literacy is becoming increasingly important," the scientist says. – Once, 1000 years ago, most people could not read and write – only monks and selected professionals could do it. I think that in the future people will also need to read and write in the language of computers."

Guo interviewed the users of his site pythontutor.com . Python Tutor ("Python Language Teacher") helps people who are learning programming to visualize the code – it shows what the computer does with each line. At the moment, 3.5 million people from 180 countries have already used the site, including students of mass open online courses (MOOCs).

The name of the service can be misleading: Python Tutor has been working with Java, JavaScript, Ruby, C and C++ for a long time.

504 people from 52 countries aged 60 to 85 years took part in the survey. Some have already retired or worked part-time, others continued to work in the same mode.

Guo found out that the motivation of most of the study participants is somehow related to age. 22% tried to make up for lost opportunities in their youth, 19% considered programming as a way to train the brain, 5% wanted to find a common language with young relatives. 14% received education within the framework of their position, 9% hoped to "improve employment prospects". Some did it just for themselves: 19% wanted to implement some project, 15% programmed just for fun, and 10% were just curious. 8% wanted to teach others afterwards.

Many respondents (21%) complained about the inability of teachers to explain the material. They talked about sharp changes in the level of complexity, that teachers give few examples, too often use technical jargon and explain "how" rather than "why". 6% noted that lessons often have no application in the real world; they would like to solve practical problems, and not listen to stories about abstract concepts. A 74-year-old retired doctor wrote, "Most of the teaching materials are made by people who know how to program, but, it seems, have not been trained in pedagogy." Among other problems, deterioration of cognitive abilities (12%), lack of free time (11%) and personal communication with teachers and fellow students (10%) were mentioned.

Based on the results of the survey, Philip Guo suggests developing educational programs aimed at the elderly. He advises teachers to repeat the material they have passed often, to give many examples, to arrange individual consultations and seminars using video chats. Context also matters – it's best to design lessons so that they are related to what students are concerned about. For example, older people could work on programs that collect and store health information. It is important to use terminology that students understand and take into account that in the category of "elderly" there may be very different people with different abilities and capabilities. In advertising such courses, it should be emphasized that they are created specifically for a specific age group, but it is better to do without a patronizing tone – surveys have shown that older students are proud of their interests and technical advancement, and a patronizing tone can alienate them. Another option is to rethink the lessons and present them as brain training games that are very popular among older people.

"When older people have access to programming, it has a number of social consequences that are not limited to computer literacy," says Philip Guo, "they include interesting mental stimulation, well–paid work from home, and so on."

The scientist is sure that if older people start to master the code, we will all benefit from it.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  26.04.2017