A Systematic Literature Review of Computer Science MOOCs for K-12 education

Computer science (CS) is increasingly becoming part of the curricula of K-12 education in different countries. However, there are few K-12 CS teachers, and tools to offer K-12 CS education are often limited. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) might help to temporarily address these challenges, and enable more schools to offer CS education. The goal of this systematic review is to give an overview of how CS MOOCs have been used in K-12 education. Nineteen papers from 2014 to May 2024 were included, describing thirteen different MOOCs. This review summarizes the research performed with these MOOCs and discusses directions for future research. Our findings show that most CS MOOCs target only part of the CS curriculum. When using a MOOC, a classroom teacher has an important role in supporting and managing students as they work in the MOOC. Research evaluating MOOCs is diverse, both in aims and in methods. In conclusion, MOOCs can play a valuable role in K-12 CS education, although additional teacher training to support students might be required. Moreover, additional learning material is needed to cover the full curriculum, as most MOOCs focus on programming and computational thinking.