A Critical Review of Primary School Students' Difficulties in Learning Programming Through Educational Games.

This article critically reviews sixteen empirical studies investigating the difficulties primary school students face when learning programming through educational games. It finds that students predominantly struggle with understanding loops, especially nested loops, while challenges with conditional and sequence structures are less frequent. Game elements such as command symbols for directions, graphical representations of programming constructs, and complex user interfaces also contribute to these difficulties. Limited research exists on students' ability to transfer programming knowledge gained from games to other contexts, with mixed results reported in the few studies addressing this issue. The review highlights implications for educators and game designers to improve instructional support, interface design, and scaffolding to better facilitate programming learning and knowledge transfer in young learners.