THE CURRENT STATUS OF PYTHON PROGRAMMING AMONG 10TH GRADE STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT SOME HIGH SCHOOLS IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

Abstract

The general education curriculum integrates programming into the Computer Science subject to help students quickly adapt to the digital age. However, learning programming, especially Python programming, still poses many difficulties for students, particularly beginners. The study surveyed 217 questionnaires from three high schools in Thai Nguyen to assess the current state of Python programming learning among 10th-grade students. The results show that 94.93% of students had never been exposed to Python programming before entering 10th grade, and 39.17% felt pressured when studying this subject. Although 76.03% of students believed that understanding basic programming concepts is not too difficult, 41.01% had difficulty applying theory to practice. In particular, 44.70% of students frequently encountered programming errors without knowing how to fix them. Some students did not recognize the benefits of online learning platforms that support programming education and lacked the frequency of practice in class, but conversely, they spent too little time on self-study, almost only under 30 minutes a day, accounting for 61.75%. From these results, the study proposes several recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning Python programming in high schools.