Search Results (9)

This study presents the design and validation process of a new Bebras-based instrument to assess computational thinking (CT) in 7th-grade students. An initial version of the test, composed of 18 multiple-choice items, was piloted with 80 students and revised based on their performance and classroom feedback. The final version, composed of 17 tasks balanced across CT components and difficulty levels, was administered to 1513 students from 86 Spanish schools. No significant gender differences were found in overall performance, supporting the potential of Bebras tasks to provide equitable assessment. An exploratory factor analysis revealed a dominant factor explaining 20% of the variance, and additional evidence (Lord’s index = 10.61) supported the use of a one-dimensional model despite the ambiguous dimensionality of the domain. BBACT offers a balanced and theoretically grounded tool for assessing CT in compulsory education and lays the foundation for future work exploring its validity and application across diverse contexts. Full article

Virtual reality (VR) technology is becoming increasingly relevant as a modern educational tool. However, its application in teaching and learning computational thinking remains relatively underexplored. This paper presents the implementation of selected tasks from the international Bebras Challenge in a VR environment called ThinkLand. A comparative study was conducted to evaluate the usability of the developed game across two interface types: mobile devices and desktop computers. A total of 100 participants, including high school and university students, took part in the study. The overall usability rating was classified as “good”, suggesting that ThinkLand holds promise as a platform for supporting computational thinking education. To assess specific aspects of interface usability, a custom Virtual Environment Usability Questionnaire (VEUQ) was developed. Regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between participants’ age, gender, and interface type with both learning performance and perceived usability, as measured by the VEUQ. The analysis revealed statistically significant differences in interaction patterns between device types, providing practical insights for improving interface design. Validated in this study, the VEUQ proved to be an effective instrument for informing interaction design and guiding the development of educational VR applications for both mobile and desktop platforms. Full article

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 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

Computational thinking (CT) has become one of the critical goals of teaching CS programming courses. Computational skills consist of skills taken in a computational form in learning programming and dealing with daily life. More research adopted games to teach CT skills. This paper investigated two games, Little Alchemy 2 and Dr. Sudoku, to promote CS students’ CT skills and applied international Bebras tests to measure their CT skills. The results showed that CT skills in problem decomposition and pattern recognition could be improved via digital games. Thus, this study contributes to computing education using available digital games to promote CS college students’ CT abilities. Full article

Computational thinking skills are increasingly required for working with information technology products and are considered core learning objectives in science and technology curriculums across all grades. However, there is yet to be a curriculum model for computational thinking, and many teachers are still figuring out this issue and designing courses to cultivate these skills in students. We planned 8-course periods for 108 curriculums, using the Bebras International Computational Thinking Challenge and programming learning motivation scale to evaluate game-based lessons from Code.org. The grade-3 and -4 students were randomly divided into self-regulation and guided-learning groups, and 153 valid data were analyzed using paired t tests and ANCOVA. As a result, we found the learning behaviors of the two groups of students to be worthy of further exploration in terms of time management and help-seeking learning strategies. Code.org’s game-based lessons effectively engage students to complete most of the course, addressing the usual course completion issues when self-paced. The self-regulation group spent more time in peer discussions and had better learning outcomes than the guided-learning group. To this end, we provide detailed curriculum information as a teaching model for the self-regulated learning of computational thinking in primary schools. Full article

The short task methodology enhances the Bebras constructive environment, and provides an emotional context that triggers the convolution of initially biased mental models and corresponding emotional reactions into an unbiased set of conceptual models for informatics education. This provides the motivation of our research–to explore the process of pedagogical design of short informatics concept-based tasks from the standpoint of mindset formation, which allows one to build conceptual models for CT education. The aim of the research is to gain a conceptual understanding of what a short task is in the context of the global Bebras Challenge initiative. We explore the principles which should underlie the pedagogical design of short tasks for informatics education that scaffold CT. Exploration of a number of practical examples of the Bebras short tasks is the background of our research methodology. The results include an analysis of the structure of short tasks, focusing on the interaction of mental models, conceptual models, and heuristics inherent in the task design. The discussion provides a comprehensive insight into the issues of the short tasks in relation to CT and the Bebras environment. We conclude with recommendations for organizing an effective pedagogical design of a short task. Full article

Computational thinking courses can cultivate students’ ability to apply logic in the fields of mathematics and information science. The new 12-year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines were implemented in Fall 2019 in Taiwan. Courses on computational thinking, problem solving, and programming are contained in the technology education field in junior and senior high schools. Swift Playgrounds is an innovative app for the iPad and Mac that makes learning Swift interactive and fun. No programming knowledge is required to use Swift Playgrounds, making it very suitable for beginners. This study was carried out by letting elementary school teachers and students participate in Swift Playgrounds computational thinking courses. By trying this app, teachers of different disciplines attempted to realize more learning situations. Students learned how to cope with functions and loop skills by playing with “Byte”, which is a character in Swift Playgrounds. There were three purposes for this study: first, designing a computational thinking course for the most basic part, “Hello! Byte”, in Swift Playgrounds; second, assigning elementary school teachers to assess the qualitative analysis of tasks in Swift Playgrounds; and third, assigning elementary school students to do the tasks and assign a difficulty index in Swift Playgrounds after learning with this app. The results show that most teachers considered this approach to be able to improve logical thinking and inferential capability after assessing, and most students considered functions and loops quite difficult after using the app. According to the students’ indices, about 86 percent of students considered that adding commands is easy, and about 37 percent of students considered that functions are easy. On the other hand, about 24 percent of students considered that applying the Slotted Stairways is difficult, and about 34 percent of students considered that using loops is hard. It is suggested that more instructions for the course or extendibility for classes is required. Full article

Research has shown that educational robotics can be an effective tool to increase students’ acquisition of knowledge in the subjects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and promote, at the same time, a progression in the development of computational thinking (CT) skills in K–12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) education. Within this research field, the present study first sought to assess the effect of a robotics laboratory on the acquisition of CT-related skills in primary school children. The study also aimed to compare the magnitude of the effect of the laboratory across third- and fourth-grade students. For the purpose of the study, a quasi-experimental post-test-only design was adopted, and a group of 51 students, from third- and fourth-grade classrooms, participating in the robotics laboratories, were compared to a control group of 32 students from classrooms of the same grades. A set of Bebras tasks was selected as an overall measure of CT skills and was administered to children in both the intervention and control groups. Overall, the results showed that programming robotics artefacts may exert a positive impact on students’ learning of computational thinking skills. Moreover, the effect of the intervention was found to be greater among third-grade children. Full article