Pea and Kurland failed to find support for the idea that a year of Logo activities improved children’s strategic planning skills.

Pea and Kurland (1984) found no problem-solving transfer based on programming language instruction. Fourth- and sixth-grade students did not show significant problem-solving and planning increases after Logo instruction. The authors also remark that specific and near problem-solving transfer may not occur through programming language instruction. They found that high school students failed to develop problem-solving skills within the Logo programming domain.

This paper critically examines current thinking about whether learning computer programming promotes the development of general higher mental functions. We show how the available evidence, and the underlying assumptions about the process of learning to program fail to address this issue adequately. Our analysis is based on a developmental cognitive science perspective on learning to program incorporating developmental and cognitive science considerations of the mental activities involved in programming. It highlights the importance for future research of investigating students’ interactions with instructional and programming contexts, developmental transformation of their programming skills, and their background knowledge and reasoning abilities.