Understanding the Impact of Programming Club on Programming Experiences

In the context of programming education, programming clubs serve as an innovative non-formal environment that supplements traditional classroom instruction. However, the practices within these non-formal learning environments and their impact on participants remain unclear. Our study first employed observational study to understand the internal dynamics and formality of these programming clubs. Subsequently, we conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 7) to explore participants’ programming learning experiences in both formal and non-formal settings, and analyzed the impact of differences in learning formats. Ultimately, our research identified three types of activities in coding clubs and six dimensions for measuring the formality of learning. We analyzed how changes in these formality dimensions affected participants’ perceptions. This preliminary study provides insights that can enhance the effectiveness of these extracurricular non-formal programming learning activities.