The integration of programming into the primary school computing curriculum presents significant challenges for the training of pre-service teachers. As most students training to become primary school teachers do not have a formal background in computer science, questions regarding their attitudes, self-efficacy, and preparedness to teach programming have become increasingly relevant. This study aims to explore how future primary school teachers perceive the teaching of programming, assess their sense of preparedness, and evaluate their knowledge and skills in computational thinking. Special attention is given to the differences between pre-service teachers who have prior experience teaching programming (e.g., during teaching practice) and those who do not.

The research is based on a mixed-methods approach using an online questionnaire. The instrument includes Likert-scale items measuring attitudes and confidence, ranking tasks comparing perceived difficulty and importance of various computing topics, and multiple-choice tasks inspired by the Czech Bebras competition to assess understanding of core concepts in programming and computational thinking. Additionally, open-ended questions provide insight into the participants’ motivations, concerns, and expectations regarding programming instruction. The data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and correlation analyses. Qualitative content analysis will be employed to examine open-ended responses.

The study seeks to identify key factors that influence future teachers' readiness to teach programming and to offer recommendations for enhancing teacher education programs. It is expected that pre-service teachers with prior teaching experience will show more positive attitudes and greater confidence in planning and delivering programming lessons. The results may inform the development of more targeted teacher preparation strategies and support the implementation of programming in primary education in line with the revised national curriculum in the Czech Republic.

Keywords: Programming education, primary school teacher attitudes, pre-service teacher training, computational thinking, computer science education.