Development and evaluation of granular simulation for integrating computational thinking into computational physics courses

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT) is an essential skill in the twenty-first century. The computational physics course (CPC) is one subject that is designed to support students in the practice of CT. Many studies show that the worksheets could be a solution in a CPC as a scaffold to achieve the CT objectives both online and offline. The study aims to develop the worksheet and integrate it with CT in a computational physics course. This study applied the research and development (R & D) method with the ADDIE model approach. In the results, the evaluation test from the experts reached a very good interpretation score based on the learning media expert (96%), the teaching material expert (95%), and the pedagogy experts (92%). So that this media is declared feasible to be used in the CPC. Furthermore, after the experimental study of students who took the computational physics course (n = 31), the study showed that the modified course could significantly improve student skills regarding overall CT (p value <0.05). However, this research also found that cooperative learning as part of CT had no improvement (p value >0.05). The experiment was conducted amid the COVID 19 pandemic wherein the students could only study at home for the whole semester. These findings indicate that the pandemic has impacted the collaborative skills of students on the course.

Learning Pattern Recognition Skills From Games: Design of an Online Pattern Recognition Educational Mobile Game Integrating Algebraic Reasoning Scaffolding

“…Azevedo and Hadwin (2005) suggested that the contexts in which scaffolding is applied to computer science education are “demonstration,” “conceptual learning,” “technology-assisted teaching,” “teacher-student debate,” “student self-learning skills,” and “metacognition.” To learn computational thinking, educational games need to provide feedback mechanisms and scaffolding to help learners master computational thinking (Lee et al, 2019). Muliyati et al (2022), in their study, incorporated computational thinking into physics instruction and used the three dimensions of computational thinking (abstraction, algorithms, and generalization) as scaffolding for the computational thinking curriculum to help students learn new knowledge, showing that the inclusion of scaffolding significantly improved the overall computational thinking skills of students. In view of the above, scaffolding support is necessary in the learning of computational thinking to support learners in performing tasks and acquiring skills.…”

Situational judgment test measures administrator computational thinking with factor analysis

“…They enable systematic problem-solving, algorithmic thinking, and critical analysis [9]. These skills find applications across various fields, including computer science, data analysis, and automation [10], [11]. They foster innovation, enhance education, create career opportunities, and contribute to global competitiveness.…”