Are digital natives spreadsheet natives?

TL;DR

This study reveals that first-year informatics students, despite being digital natives with spreadsheet training, struggle with algorithmic tasks, highlighting the need for formal, algorithm-based education regardless of digital background.

Contribution

It demonstrates that digital nativeness does not equate to spreadsheet proficiency and emphasizes the importance of formal algorithmic training for students.

Findings

Students performed poorly on spreadsheet problems.

Algorithm-based, multilevel array formulas improved performance.

Formal training is essential regardless of digital nativeness.

Abstract

The present paper reports the results of testing first year students of Informatics on their algorithmic skills and knowledge transfer abilities in spreadsheet environments. The selection of students plays a crucial role in the project. On the one hand, they have officially finished their spreadsheet training - they know everything - while on the other hand, they do not need any training, since they are digital natives, to whom digital skills are assigned by birth. However, we found that the students had serious difficulties in solving the spreadsheet problems presented: so low were their results that it allowed us to form broad tendencies. Considering computational thinking, algorithmic skills, and knowledge transfer abilities, it is clear that those students performed better who used algorithm-based, multilevel array formulas instead of problem specific, unconnected built-in functions. Furthermore, we can conclude that students, regardless of their birth date and digital generation assigned to them, are in great need of official, high-mathability, algorithm-based training with expert teachers.