A double dissociative study into the effectiveness of computational thinking

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Author
Calderon, Ana
Perham, Nick
Skillicorn, Deiniol
Watt, Andrew
Date
2019-10-10Acceptance date
2019-08-10
Date Deposited
2019-09-26
Type
Article
Publisher
Springer
ISSN
1573-7608
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
We propose the first steps towards a rigorous analysis of the effectiveness of an emerging pedagogy, Computational Thinking. We found that two aspects of the pedagogy have a positive effect with regards to enhancing two cognitive processes, namely sequential thinking and in abstract thinking. Our data was gathered experimentally with a cohort of mixed-ability undergraduate students enrolled on three distinct courses. The study employed a mixed 2 x 2 factorial design with type of classroom intervention, measurements were taken at baseline and following delivery of computational thinking methodologies designed to focus on specific components of the pedagogy. The dependent variable was percentage improvement from baseline, and the analyses were conducted using 2 x 2 mixed ANOVA, an alpha criterion of p<.05 was adopted for all analyses. The specific components investigated were algorithmic thinking and abstraction, and we found a positive correlation between enhancements of sequentiality and abstract thinking.
Journal/conference proceeding
Education and Information Technologies;
Citation
Calderon, A., Skillicorn, D., Watt, A. and Perham, N. (2019) 'A double dissociative study into the effectiveness of computational thinking', Education and Information Technologies. DOI: 10.1007/s10639-019-09991-3.
Description
Article published in Education and Information Technologies on 10 October 2019 (online), available open access at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-09991-3.
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
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