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Education Sciences
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Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills
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Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102). This special issue belongs to the section "STEM Education".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2024) | Viewed by 4474

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Emily Relkin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Education Development Center, Waltham, MA, USA
Interests: computational thinking; early childhood; computer science; educational technologies; assessment
Dr. María Zapata Cáceres

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Computer Science and Statistics Department, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, 28933 Madrid, Spain
Interests: computational thinking; early childhood; primary school; computer science; educational video games; educational technologies; assessment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues:

Computational Thinking (CT) skills equip young learners with the cognitive foundations necessary to succeed in today’s technology-driven society. The acquisition of CT skills is therefore one of the essential goals of contemporary Computer Science (CS) education. There are many CS curricula, educational software programs and other modalities designed to teach the principles of CT to children. Less attention has been paid to the assessment of CT skills in children, resulting in a relative paucity of validated instruments for measuring the impact of this aspect of CS education on preschool and elementary students. Without such instruments, educators may be hard-pressed to accurately gauge their student's progress in acquiring CT skills or measure the effectiveness of their CS lessons. 

The primary objective of this Special Issue is to present an overview of current progress in developing, validating, and implementing measures of Computational Thinking for children and educators. This includes quantitative and qualitative measures of CT, instruments employing coding or “unplugged” challenges as well as standardized, telemetric and adaptive assessment formats. Contributors are encouraged to present empiric data as well as theory papers on this topic.

Topics of interest to this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following topics as they apply to children and their educators:

  • Characterization of instruments for measuring CT skills in children;
  • Game-based assessments of CT;
  • Adaptive CT assessments;
  • Naturalistic CT assessment;
  • Telemetric measures of CT;
  • CT assessment for children with disabilities;
  • Measuring CT skills as they relate to Artificial Intelligence;
  • Measuring the impact of child development on CT skills;
  • CT assessment in large groups;
  • Measuring parent and educator perceptions of CT;
  • Measuring the impact of CT skills outside the context of CS.

Dr. Emily Relkin
Dr. María Zapata Cáceres
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • computational thinking
  • children
  • assessment
  • computer science

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 234 KiB  
Article
Teacher Practices for Formatively Assessing Computational Thinking with Early Elementary Learners
by Heather Sherwood, Katherine McMillan Culp, Camille Ferguson, Alice Kaiser, Meagan Henry and Anthony Negron
Educ. Sci. 2024, 14(11), 1250; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14111250 - 14 Nov 2024
Viewed by 522
Abstract
Few studies of computational thinking (CT) integration in elementary curricula have yet focused on supporting early elementary educators with implementing and assessing their young students’ application of these practices to content area work. This paper summarizes a collaborative research project that engaged researchers, [...] Read more.
Few studies of computational thinking (CT) integration in elementary curricula have yet focused on supporting early elementary educators with implementing and assessing their young students’ application of these practices to content area work. This paper summarizes a collaborative research project that engaged researchers, K-second grade teachers, and professional development (PD) providers in implementing a hybrid PD model to answer the following research questions: (1) What kind of PD and guidance do teachers need to identify and support emergent computational thinking development in young students’ language and work process? (2) What kind of PD and guidance do teachers need to identify emergent computational thinking development in young students’ work products? This project employed a mixed-methods research design that included pre- and post-surveys and interviews with teachers to measure and understand how growth in teachers’ confidence, knowledge, and self-efficacy with CT prepared them to identify and support these concepts with young learners. Additionally, analysis was able to identify the key formative assessment strategies these teachers employed to generate insight into students’ understanding and application of CT during problem-solving. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills)
20 pages, 3039 KiB  
Article
Game On: A Journey into Computational Thinking with Modern Board Games in Portuguese Primary Education
by Fábio Machuqueiro and João Piedade
Educ. Sci. 2024, 14(11), 1182; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14111182 - 29 Oct 2024
Viewed by 797
Abstract
Recent studies highlight the potential of modern board games (MBGs) to foster computational thinking (CT) skills in students. This research explored the impact of integrating MBGs into a primary education classroom through an embedded concurrent mixed-methods approach, with a pre-experimental design in its [...] Read more.
Recent studies highlight the potential of modern board games (MBGs) to foster computational thinking (CT) skills in students. This research explored the impact of integrating MBGs into a primary education classroom through an embedded concurrent mixed-methods approach, with a pre-experimental design in its quantitative aspect and content analysis in its qualitative dimension, with 20 fourth-grade students from a school in Portugal. The students participated in 10 game sessions, each lasting 50 min, and their CT skills were assessed using Bebras tasks in both the pre-test and post-test phases. Statistical analysis, including the Shapiro–Wilk test for normality and paired sample t-tests, revealed significant improvements in key CT areas, particularly abstraction, algorithmic thinking, and decomposition. Descriptive statistics were also calculated, and content analysis using Nvivo software was conducted on field notes, corroborating the quantitative data. The results suggest that MBGs can serve as a valuable educational tool for developing CT skills in young learners. This study not only highlights the effectiveness of MBGs but also emphasises the need for further research using more robust experimental designs to enhance CT development in educational settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills)
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19 pages, 2295 KiB  
Article
Computational Thinking and Modeling: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Learning Transfer
by Line Have Musaeus and Peter Musaeus
Educ. Sci. 2024, 14(9), 980; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090980 - 5 Sep 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 886
Abstract
This quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of computational learning activities on high school students’ computational thinking (CT) and computational modeling (CM) skills. High school students (n = 90) aged 16 to 19 engaged in activities using computer models versus textbook-based models in mathematics [...] Read more.
This quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of computational learning activities on high school students’ computational thinking (CT) and computational modeling (CM) skills. High school students (n = 90) aged 16 to 19 engaged in activities using computer models versus textbook-based models in mathematics and social science. The results indicated that students using computer models showed significant improvements in CT and CM skills compared to their peers in conventional learning settings. However, a potential ceiling effect in the CT assessments suggests that the test may not fully capture the extent of skill development. These findings highlight the importance of integrating computational learning activities in education, as they enhance students’ abilities to apply these skills beyond the classroom. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills)
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Other

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25 pages, 4786 KiB  
Systematic Review
Systematic Review of Instruments to Assess Computational Thinking in Early Years of Schooling
by Lina Marcela Ocampo, Milena Corrales-Álvarez, Sergio Augusto Cardona-Torres and María Zapata-Cáceres
Educ. Sci. 2024, 14(10), 1124; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14101124 - 16 Oct 2024
Viewed by 1180
Abstract
Computational thinking (CT) is considered a key competence in today’s digital era. It is an emerging construct that relates to critical thinking and creativity. Research on its assessment is in the process of consolidation. This systematic review aims to analyze studies that have [...] Read more.
Computational thinking (CT) is considered a key competence in today’s digital era. It is an emerging construct that relates to critical thinking and creativity. Research on its assessment is in the process of consolidation. This systematic review aims to analyze studies that have used CT assessment instruments for children and adolescents aged 4 to 16 years in order to identify which variables, they assess and their psychometric properties. The search and analysis were carried out following the PRISMA statement protocol, analyzing 50 articles published between 2006 and March 2023. An increase in the publication of CT measurement instruments is observed, with 54% of them supported by evidence of validity and 88% by reliability, highlighting construct validity, followed by content and criteria validity. China leads in the number of publications, while Asia and Europe concentrate most of the research. There is a noticeable contribution from South America, evidencing the lack of participation from Central and South American countries in this field of study. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measuring Children’s Computational Thinking Skills)
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