Understanding the Parental Involvement in Their Children's Programming Learning

Parents play a critical yet understudied role in children’s programming education. While prior research has focused on learners and educators, little is known about how parents support, evaluate, and sustain their involvement. In this study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 parents in China whose children had varied programming learning experiences. Through thematic analysis, we identify two key dynamics of parental involvement: (1) parents primarily contribute through indirect forms of support—such as emotional encouragement, logistical coordination, and resource provision—rather than direct technical assistance; (2) parental involvement evolves dynamically over time, shaped by access to information, children’s feedback, and social pressures. Our findings reveal that parental involvement is a dynamic process involving infrastructuring, meaning-making, and negotiation. We offer a novel perspective by reframing parents as collaborative actors in sociotechnical learning ecologies and provide design implications for supporting parents in scaffolding their children's programming education over time.