Development of a Lean Computational Thinking Abilities Assessment for Middle Grades Students

Wiebe, Eric N.; London, J. C.; Aksit, Osman; Mott, Bradford W.; Boyer, Kristy Elizabeth; Lester, James C.

doi:10.1145/3287324.3287390

Cited by 39 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In the current study, we have utilized curricular materials that leverage both definitions of CT: as a set of skills specific to CS and as a more general problem‐solving skill set. Because of this, we have utilized a validated assessment that combines both items with a computer programming context and puzzle‐like items that focus on a more general problem‐solving context (Wiebe et al, 2019).…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building a computational model of food webs: Impacts on middle school students' computational and systems thinking skills

Rachmatullah

Wiebe

2021

J Res Sci Teach

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Integral to fostering computational thinking (CT) skills, which are increasingly essential in today's digital era, has been the shift of paper‐based pictorial modeling activities to computational modeling. Research has indicated that modeling activities can advance students' understanding of a system's mechanism (i.e., systems thinking), such as an ecosystem. The current study examines the impacts of paper‐based pictorial and computational modeling activities on students' systems thinking and CT skills. A total of 751 seventh‐grade students were involved in online modeling activities, spanning over 4 days, and were assigned purposefully to a paper‐based modeling condition (n = 374) or a computational modeling (n = 377) condition. They took systems‐thinking‐embedded food web and CT assessments before and after the four activities, in addition to a formative assessment after each activity. Multilevel modeling and repeated‐measures correlation tests were used to analyze the students' quantitative data. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) was utilized to map out students' perceptions of what they believed they learned from the activities. The results revealed significant increases in the systems thinking‐embedded food web constructs in both conditions. However, the increase of CT skills in the paper‐based pictorial condition was not as significant as the increase in the computational modeling condition. ENA results showed that students in the computational modeling condition had more co‐occurrences between science and computer science or CT concepts than those in the paper‐based pictorial condition. These findings illuminate the benefit of engaging students in computationally rich science activities to advance both systems thinking and CT skills.

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Section: Conceptual Framework and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building a computational model of food webs: Impacts on middle school students' computational and systems thinking skills

Rachmatullah

Wiebe

2021

J Res Sci Teach

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“…Some notable exceptions to the issues mentioned above are the Computational Thinking test (CTt;Román-González, 2015;Román-González et al, 2017, the assessment created by Grover and Basu (2017), the Middle Grades Computer Science Concept Inventory (MG-CSCI; Rachmatullah et al, 2020), the Lean Computational Thinking Abilities Assessment (LCTAA; Wiebe et al, 2019), the Beginners Computational Thinking Test (BCCt; Zapata-Caceres et al, 2020), and the PESS framework (Mannila et al, 2020).…”

Section: Assessment Of Programming Concepts Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computerized adaptive assessment of understanding of programming concepts in primary school children

Hogenboom

Hermans

Maas

2021

Computer Science Education

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Background and Context.Valid assessment of understanding of programming concepts in primary school children is essential to implement and improve programming education. Objective. We developed and validated the Computerized Adaptive Programming Concepts Test (CAPCT) with a novel application of Item Response Theory. The CAPCT is a web-based and resource-efficient adaptive assessment of 4489 questions measuring: the understanding of basic sequences, loops, conditions (if & ifelse statements), debugging, multiple agents, procedures, and the ability to generalize to a new syntax. Method. Data was collected through an existing online adaptive practice and monitoring system called Math Garden. We collected 14 million responses from 93,341 Dutch children (ages 4 -13). Findings. The CAPCT demonstrated good psychometric qualities because 75% of the variance in question difficulty was explained by differences in item characteristics. The CAPCT demonstrated robustness against adding new participants and adding new items. Differences in player ability (i.e., understanding of CS concepts) were due to differences in age, gender, the number of items played, and prior mathematical ability. Implications. The CAPCT may be used by teachers to identify the level of programming concept understanding of their pupils, while researchers may use the CAPCT to construct and validate effective teaching resources.

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“…Today, it is possible to find several other published computer-based or paper-pencil CT tests usable in different contexts; however, effectiveness of those approaches is still being investigated (Werner, Denner, & Campe, 2012;Román-González, 2015). An interesting approach to CT assessment combines tasks from specific CT assessment (CTt) and Bebras challenge assessments (Wiebe, et al, 2019). By combining the two assessments, a subset of tasks was selected to create a promising assessment that could be applicable in a reasonable time, but also be suitable for pupils with no previous programming experience.…”

Section: Ct Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, the instrument can collect quality information on the development of pupils' computational thinking during the teaching process. The authors emphasize the need for further research on the issue of validity and further work on the selection of an appropriate subset of tasks (Wiebe, et al, 2019).…”

Section: Ct Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Computational Thinking – A Croatian Evidence-Centered Design model

Bubica¹,

Boljat²

2021

Informatics in Education

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The new Croatian Informatics curriculum, which introduces computational thinking concepts into learning outcomes has been put into practice. A computational thinking assessment model reflecting the learning outcomes of the Croatian curriculum was created using an evidence-centered design approach. The possibility of assessing the computational thinking concepts, abstraction, decomposition, and algorithmic thinking, in an actual classroom situation and examples of such assessment is increasingly coming to the forefront of computer science educational research. Precisely for that purpose, the research was conducted. Research data are collected through the test and questionnaire of 407 pupils (10 middle schools, age 12), analysed by exploratory factor analysis and non-parametric tests. Results showed that the presented model was suitable to assess the understanding of the concepts of abstraction and algorithmic thinking, independently of the previous experience with programming languages and pupil's gender, while assessment of decomposition needs more work and improvement, some recommendations are provided. Also, it received positive feedback from pupils and teachers what implicated that such an assessment model could help teachers in building a real-time measurement instrument.

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Development of a Lean Computational Thinking Abilities Assessment for Middle Grades Students

Cited by 39 publications

References 32 publications

Building a computational model of food webs: Impacts on middle school students' computational and systems thinking skills

Building a computational model of food webs: Impacts on middle school students' computational and systems thinking skills

Computerized adaptive assessment of understanding of programming concepts in primary school children

Assessment of Computational Thinking – A Croatian Evidence-Centered Design model

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