Barriers to Digital Literacy: Learning to Program

There are many challenges associated with teaching and learning computer programming for first year engineering students in non-computer based fields. This paper discusses barriers to acquiring the digital literacy needed to learn end-user programming, or programming as a tool to support activities in a non-computer science domain. The first barrier discussed is the gap in educational curriculum, where the first formal introduction to computer science and programming is found in pre-university preparatory courses. The second barrier is a lack of consensus in approaches to learning programming in online resources. A solution of integrating opportunities to use programming as a tool in existing course curriculum activities is proposed, as a way to improve programming accessibility and allow future engineers to use digital skills to innovate in non-computer based applications.