A double dissociative study into the effectiveness of computational thinking

Abstract

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.