From Gaming to Computational Thinking: An Adaptive Educational Computer Game-Based Learning Approach

Abstract

Educational games have been increasingly used to improve students’ computational thinking. However, most existing games have focused on the theoretical knowledge of computational thinking, ignoring the development of computational thinking skills. Moreover, there is a lack of integration of adaptivity into educational computer games for computational thinking, which is crucial to addressing individual needs in developing computational thinking skills. In this study, we present an adaptive educational computer game, called AutoThinking, for developing students’ computational thinking skills in addition to their conceptual knowledge. To evaluate the effects of the game, we conducted an experimental study with 79 elementary school students in Estonia, where the experimental group learned with AutoThinking, while the control group used a traditional technology-enhanced learning approach. Our findings show that learning with the adaptive educational computer game significantly improved students’ computational thinking related to both conceptual knowledge and skills. Moreover, students using the adaptive educational computer game showed a significantly higher level of interest, satisfaction, flow state, and technology acceptance in learning computational thinking. Implications of the findings are also discussed.

Analysis of Computational Thinking in Children’s Literature for K-6 Students: Literature as a Non-Programming Unplugged Resource

“…Researchers have shown that students as young as kindergarten learn CT skills through programming (Bers et al, 2014;Sullivan & Bers, 2016;Tran, 2019;Yin et al, 2020). Recently, researchers have proposed disconnecting CT from programming in order to focus on the process of problem-solving inherent in CT (Lu & Fletcher, 2009;Waterman et al, 2020;Brackmann et al, 2017;Hooshyar et al, 2020). This shift to an emphasis on CT skills apart from programming is evidenced by the change at the secondary level in the AP computer science courses.…”

“…Non-programming CT activities can use technology. Hooshyar et al (2020) introduced elementary students to an adaptive educational game (AutoThinking) that improved their CT skills (algorithmic thinking; pattern recognition and generalization; debugging; simulation) and taught CT concepts (sequence, conditional, loop). The adaptivity of the game personalized the learning for individual students and increased student interest, satisfaction, flow state, and tech acceptance.…”

“…Teachers personalize the learning for students by differentiating the content students will learn (instruction), the activities students will engage in (curriculum), or the products they produce to show what they know (assessment) (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2018). Personalization of the learning for students has shown to be effective in improving the CT skills of students in non-programming approaches (Hooshyar et al, 2020) and is a factor attributed to student success with computing experiences (Israel et al, 2015).…”

Prediction of Students’ Performance in e-Learning Environment using Data Mining/ Machine Learning Techniques

“…Authors reported 96.62% F1 score for ANN using engagement and performance features, while 96.04% SVM (RBF kernel) using demographic, engagement and performance features. In the same year, Hooshyar et al [19] proposed a novel approach PPP based on the delay behaviour of students to predict their performance. The given algorithm focused on student's assignment submission behaviour as the main indicator in forecasting their performance.…”

El uso de la gamificación en la enseñanza del emprendimiento: actitud e intención de uso por parte del profesorado universitario

“…A pesar de haber recibido críticas (Bogost, 2011) por tratarse de una especie de "cajón de sastre" en el que todo cabe, precisamente quizás por eso ha sido uno de esos términos "afortunados" que han calado entre diferentes públicos (tanto académicos como no académicos) y sectores (no sólo el sector educativo sino también la industria del entretenimiento, el área de la salud, el marketing, y el ámbito empresarial en su conjunto). Este afán aglutinador del término gamificación, así como la juventud del campo de estudio, ha provocado ciertas controversias y solapes con otros términos como los juegos serios o serious games (SGs) (Alexiou, Schippers, Oshri, y Angelopoulos, 2020), el game-based learning (GBL) (Hooshyar et al, 2020), los educational games (Yu, Gao, y Wang, 2020) o los simulation games (Kiss, y Schmuck, 2020).…”