The Impact of SRA-Programming on Computational Thinking in a Visual Oriented Programming Environment

Abstract

Visual programming environments are popular instruments in teaching Computational Thinking (CT) in schools today. Applying Sense-Reason-Act (SRA) programming can influence the development of computational thinking when forcing pupils to anticipate the unforeseen in their computer programs. SRA-programming originates from the programming of tangible robots, but can also be of equal value in visual programming with on-screen output. The underlying rationale is that programming in a visual programming environment using SRA leads to more understanding of the computational concepts addressed, resulting in a higher level of computational skill compared to visual programming without the application of SRA. Furthermore, it has been hypothesised that if pupils in a visual programming environment can anticipate unforeseen events and solve programming tasks by applying SRA, they will be better able to solve complex computational thinking tasks. To establish if characteristic differences in the development of computational thinking can be measured when SRA-programming is applied in a visual programming environment with an on-screen output, we assessed the applicability of SRA-programming with visual output as the main component of the execution of developed code. This research uses a pre-test post-test design that reveals significant differences in the development of computational thinking in two treatment conditions. To assess CT, the Computational Thinking Test (CTt) was used. Results show that when using SRA-programming in a visual programming environment it leads to an increased understanding of complex computational concepts, which results in a significant increase in the development of computational thinking.

A Novel Three-Way Decision Model for Improving Computational Thinking Based on Grey Correlation Analysis

“…inking Evaluation Methods. Existing computational thinking evaluation methods include programming task-based assessments [14,15] and scale assessments [16][17][18][19]. Automatic scoring systems based on programming tasks automatically score the test taker's computational thinking skills by the learner's programming code situation.…”

“…(14) C←∅ // Initialize the expert collection. (15) for i � 1 to k-1 do (16) for j � 2 to k do (17) combine the collections containing the same experts in the pairwise clusters (18) if unclustered experts then (19) separate into a class (20) coefficient under each time or each feature. Because the information is too scattered, it is not conducive to the overall comparison of objects.…”

“…In this study, the top 30% of students were selected as the excellent category, i.e., category A, the bottom 20% as the average category, i.e., category C, and the rest as the medium category, i.e., category B. us, the initial category classification of the evaluated subjects was completed. e initial classification of the three categories of students, that is, the tripartition, is A � [10,7,24,23,20,5,6,22,18], B � [9,19,4,25,13,8,21,12,28,11,15,3,17,14,29], and C � [1, 26, 27, 16, 2, 0], respectively.…”

Effect of SRA-programming on computational thinking through different output modalities

“…In this research, we are specifically interested in the effect on CT of applying SRAprogramming in a visual programming environment, as demonstrated previously (Fanchamps et al, 2021), depending on the type of output (i.e. visual or tangible).…”

“…The ability to construct a computer program that anticipates changing environmental conditions by means of sensor observations demands a different computational approach than performing programming tasks in an unchanging, predictable environment (Gomes & Mendes, 2007;Kim & Kim, 2003;Kyriazopoulos et al, 2022). By using sense-reason-act (SRA) programming, a programmed artefact or a simulation of reality can react to changes in its surroundings (Fanchamps et al, 2021). The concept of SRA, derived from the world of robotics, requires the understanding that the operating program should continuously compare the external conditions with the desired conditions (Lith, 2006).…”