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Computational thinking in primary school : an examination of abstraction and decomposition for different ages

RIJKE, W.J. (2017) Computational thinking in primary school : an examination of abstraction and decomposition for different ages.

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Abstract:Computational thinking describes the thought process of formulating problems and their solutions in a way that can be carried out by a computer. Despite a growing effort to implement computational thinking skills in primary schools, little research has been conducted about what skills to teach at what age. This is a problem for teachers working in primary education, wanting to teach computational thinking skills. The research questions that guide this study are as follows: (1) How is age influencing the students’ success in tasks related to computational thinking? (2) How difficult are lessons about computational thinking perceived by students? (3) What are the students’ perceptions of their learning experiences? 210 primary school students between the age of 6 and 12 participated in this study. Lessons from the Barefoot Computing project are used as an introduction into two computational thinking subjects: abstraction and decomposition. The first main finding concerns the relation between age and the discussed computational thinking skills; abstraction and decomposition. Second, an interaction is found between gender and the abstraction task. Third, for both tasks, there are no significant differences between age groups on perceived difficulty, cognitive load, and flow. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
SLO, Enschede, The Netherlands
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology, 81 education, teaching
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71851
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