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Teaching computational thinking has been a focus of recent efforts to broaden the reach of computer science (CS) education for today’s students who live and work in a world that is heavily influenced by computing principles. Computational thinking (CT) essentially means thinking like a computer scientist by using principles and concepts learned in CS as part of our daily lives. Not only is CT essential for the development of computer applications, but it can also be used to support problem solving across all disciplines. Computational thinking involves solving problems by drawing from skills fundamental to CS such as decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design. The present study examined how Dr. Scratch, a CT assessment tool, functions as an assessment for computational thinking. This study compared strengths and weaknesses of the CT skills of 360 seventh- and eighth-grade students who were engaged in a Scratch programming environment through the use of Dr. Scratch. The data were collected from a publicly available dataset available on the Scratch website. The Mann-Whitney U analysis revealed that there were specific similarities and differences between the seventh- and eighth-grade CT skills. The findings also highlight affordances and constraints of Dr. Scratch as a CT tool and address the challenges of analyzing Scratch projects from young Scratch learners. Recommendations are offered to researchers and educators about how they might use Scratch data to help improve students’ CT skills.

Studiens syfte är att bidra med kunskap om hur barn och pedagoger interagerar och kommunicerar i sagoberättande, samt undersöka om det finns en grund till datalogiskt tänkande i redan befintlig undervisning. Studien har utgått från det sociokulturella perspektivet där interaktionen mellan människor är grunden för lärandet, genom att observera sagostunder, som genomfördes med hjälp av flanotavlan och dess bilder. Som metod användes direktobservationer med semistrukturerat observationsschema, utformat från Interaction Process Analysis (IPA). Observationerna visade på att ord som förekommer inom analog programmering så som räkneord, kommandon, position och riktning också förekom i sagoberättandet, men användes inte för analog programmering.

This study aims to investigate CT in relation to students’ experience with visual programming - particularly visual programming language Scratch. The study looks at the level of CT among Swedish high school students. Two research questions are investigated; one related to students’ general programming experience, one related to their level of experience with programming language Scratch. The method used in the study is the Computational Thinking test (CTt). Data from 162 students is presented. The study finds that the students’ performance is relatively high, but not as high as expected given the fact that Swedish education has become heavily focused on teaching programming in recent years. The study also finds that the level of Scratch experience alone is not found to impact the performance, which implies that Scratch does not allow users to deepen their CT knowledge the more they use it. Visual programming is found to play an important role in the level of computational thinking, although the participants with the best results have additional experience of normal programming. The study concludes that visual programming needs to be combined with normal programming in order for students to achieve the best result within computational thinking

<p>  </p> <p>First-Year Engineering (FYE) programs are a critical part of engineering education, yet they are quite complex settings. Given the importance and complexity of FYE programs, research to better understand student learning and inform design and assessment in FYE programs is imperative. Therefore, this dissertation showcases various uses of data analytics and educational theory to support decision-making when designing and assessing FYE programs. Three case studies shape this dissertation work. Each study encompasses a variety of educational data sources, analytical methods, and decision-making tools to produce valuable findings for FYE classrooms. In addition, this dissertation also discusses the potential for incorporating data analytics into FYE programs. A more detailed description of the research methods, a summary of findings, and a list of resulting publications for each case study follows.</p> <p>The first case study investigated the relationship between two related Computational Thinking (CT) practices, data practices and computational problem-solving practices, in acquiring other CT competencies in a large FYE course setting. This study explored the following research questions: (1) What are the different student profiles that characterize their foundational CT practices at the beginning of the semester? and (2) Within these profiles, what are the progressions that students follow in the acquisition of advanced CT practices? To answer these questions, N-TARP Clustering, a novel machine learning algorithm, and sound statistical tools were used to analyze assessment data from the course at the learning objective level. Such a hybrid approach was needed due to the high-dimensionality and homogeneity characteristics of the assessment. It was found that early mastery of troubleshooting and debugging is linked to the successful acquisition of more complex CT competencies. This research was published in an article in the journal <em>IEEE Access</em>.</p> <p>The second case study examined self-regulation components associated with students' successful acquisition of CT skills using students' reflections and assessment data. This research was grounded in three subprocesses of the Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) theory: strategic planning, access to feedback, and self-evaluation. This study responded to the following research question: What is the relationship between SRL subprocesses: access to feedback, self-evaluation, strategic planning, and the acquisition of CT skills in an FYE course? Results from a structural equation model, which reflects the complexity and multidimensionality of the analysis, provided evidence of the relevance of the three subprocesses in the acquisition of CT skills and highlighted the importance of self-assessment as key to success in the acquisition of programming skills. Furthermore, self-assessment was found to effectively represent the task strategy and access to feedback from the students. This analysis led to the understanding that even though the three SRL subprocesses are relevant for the student's success, self-evaluation serves as a catalyst between strategic planning and access to feedback. A resulting article from this case study will be submitted to the <em>International Journal of Engineering Education</em> in the future.</p> <p>Lastly, the third study aimed to predict the students' learning outcomes using data from the Learning Management System (LMS) in an FYE course. The following research questions were explored in this case study: (1) What type of LMS objects contain information to explain students' grades in a FYE course? (2) Is the inclusion of a human operator during the data transformation process significant to the analysis of learning outcomes? Two different sections of a large FYE course were used, one serving as a training data set and the other one as a testing data set. Two logistic regression models were trained. The first model corresponded to a common approach for building a predictive model, using the data from the LMS directly. The second model considered the specifics of the course by transforming the data from aggregate user interaction to more granular categories related to the content of the class. A comparison was made between the predictive measures, e.g., precision, accuracy, recall, and F1 score for both models. The findings from the transformed data set indicate that students' engagement with the career exploration curriculum was the strongest predictor of students' final grades in the course. This is a fascinating finding because the amount of weight the career assignments contributed to the overall course grade was relatively low. This study will be presented at the 2022 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) national conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</p>

[pt] Nas últimas décadas passamos por uma grande (r)evolução tecnológica, portanto, é indispensável que nossa sociedade tenha conhecimentos tecnológicos, dentre esses, o pensamento computacional e a linguagem computacional. Parte desse crescimento tecnológico vem da necessidade de resolução de problemas, muito deles ligados à matemática. No Brasil, temos a BNCC, que propõe relacionar resolução de problemas e pensamento computacional. Portanto esta pesquisa tem como objetivo trazer uma conexão entre essas duas áreas a fim de atender as demandas do professor, que pode precisar de uma ajuda na criação de uma aula envolvendo programação e matemática, e do aluno, que por sua vez precisa estar familiarizado com novas tecnologias que o mercado de trabalho exige. Propomos atividades com o uso de programas com linguagens computacionais a fim de estimular a discussão e inserção do pensamento computacional através da matemática nos currículos escolares. E por fim, este trabalho apresenta os resultados das atividades propostas, com os tópicos a serem considerados no que diz respeito ao PC e a matemática aplicada no ensino básico. / [en] In recent decades we have gone through a great technological (r)evolution, therefore, it is essential that our society has technological knowledge, among these, computational thinking and computational language. Part of this technological growth comes from the need to solve problems, many of them linked to mathematics. In Brazil, we have the BNCC, which proposes to relate problem solving and computational thinking. Therefore, this research aims to bring a connection between these two areas in order to meet the demands of the teacher, who may need help in creating a class involving programming and mathematics, and the student, who in turn needs to be familiar with new technologies that the labor market demands. We propose activities with the use of programs with computational languages in order to stimulate the discussion and insertion of computational thinking through mathematics in school curricula. Finally, this work presents the results of the proposed activities, with topics to be considered with regard to computational thinking and applied mathematics in basic education.

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Det har länge varit en debatt om programmering ska ingå i den svenska grundskolans läroplan. I Europa är valet att lägga till programmering i grundskoleutbildningen just nu en av de tydligaste trenderna. Flera länder, så som Danmark och England, har redan på något sätt infört programmering till sin grundskoleutbildning.I denna studie undersöks hur programmering och datalogiskt tänkande kan undervisas i skolan. Detta görs dels genom en genomgång av tidigare programmeringsspråk som har används till undervisning av programmering, men även genom en observations- och enkätstudie. Observationsstudien genomfördes i Malmö hos verksamheten CoderDojo, en global rörelse som erbjuder alla möjligheten att få testa på programmering. För att få en uppfattning av vad barn och ungdomar har för tankar och idéer om programmering genomförde vi även en enkätundersökning som skickades ut till CoderDojos samtliga verksamheter i Sverige. Resultatet från dessa enkäter gav en bild av vad barn och ungdomar har för tankar om hur programmering kan användas i den svenska skolan. / For some time now, there's been a debate if programming should be included in the Swedish compulsory school curriculum. The choice to add programming in primary education is now one of the clearest education trends in Europe. Several countries, such as Denmark and England, have already in some ways introduced programming to the primary education.This study examines how programming and computational thinking can be taught in the Swedish schools. We have done a review of past programming language used for teaching programming and computational thinking, but also through observational study and a survey study. The observational study was performed in Malmö at the community CoderDojo, a worldwide movement that offers everyone the opportunity to test programming. To get an idea of what children and teenagers think about programming, we also a performed a survey. This survey was sent out to all CoderDojos operations in Sweden. The results from these surveys give us a picture of what children and teenagers think on how programming and computational thinking might be used in the school.

The number of women in computing is significantly low compared to the number of men in the discipline, with African American women making up an even smaller segment of this population. Related literature accredits this phenomenon to multiple sources, including background, stereotypes, discrimination, self-confidence, and a lack of self-efficacy or belief in one's capabilities. However, a majority of the literature fails to represent African American females in research studies. This research used a mixed methods approach to understand the attitudes of African American middle school girls toward computer science and investigated the factors that influence these attitudes. Since women who do pursue computing degrees and continue with graduate education often publish in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in greater proportions than men, this research used an intervention to introduce African American middle school girls to computational thinking concepts using HCI topics. To expand the scope of the data collected, a separate group of girls were introduced to computational thinking concepts through Algorithms. Data were collected through both quantitative and qualitative sources, and analyzed using inferential statistics and content analysis. The results show that African American middle school girls generally have negative attitudes toward computer science. However, after participating in a computer science intervention, perceptions toward computer science become more positive. The results also reveal that four factors influence the attitudes of African American middle school girls toward computer science, such as the participation in an intervention, the intervention content domain, the facilitation of performance accomplishments, and participant characteristics like socioeconomic status, mother's education, school grades, and the use of smart phones and video game consoles at home. / Ph. D.

Allt fler delar av samhållet digitaliseras och i och med detta ökar behovet av digital kompetens, bland annat inom programmering. Programmering som skolämne finns på gymnasienivå och kan antingen ingå inom ramen för ett program eller läsas som valbar kurs. Utgångspunkten för detta arbete är programmeringsundervisningen på gymnasiet, med särskilt fokus på kursen Programmering 1.  Syftet med detta arbete är att kartlägga hur elevers arbetssätt vid lösning av en individuell uppgiftg i kursen Programmering 1 kan förstås utifrån ett antal förmågor inom datalogiskt tänkande. De förmågor inom datalogiskt tänkande som avses här är abstraktion, algoritsmiskt tänkande, dekompositionm, mönsterigenkänning och generalisering.  För att samla in studiens data, som är kvalitativ, användes observationer och intervjuer. Totalt sett studerades åtta elever som gick årskurs 3 på teknikprogrammet på en gymnasieskola och som läste kursen Programmering 1 som en obligatorsik del av sitt program. Insamlade data analyserades genom att göra en tematisk analys.  Den tematiska analysen resulterade i en tankekarta som visualiserar hur elevernas beteenden under uppgiftslösningen kan förstås utifrån förmågorna inom datalogiskt tänkande. Analysen visade att alla undersökta förmågor förekom i någon utsträckning, men att eleverna använde abstraktion och algoritmiskt tänkande i större utsträckning och med större säkerhet än dekomposition och mönsterigenkänning. / An increasing number of sectors in society are being digitalized, which in turn increases the need for digital skills, including programming. Programming is a subject in upper secondary school and can either be part of a program or taken as an elective course. The focus of this study is programming education in upper secondary school, specifically the course Programming 1.  The purpose of this study is to map how students' approach to solving individual tasks in the Programming 1 course can be understood based on a set of abilities related to computational thinking. The computational thinking abilities considered here are abstraction, algorithmic thinking, decomposition, pattern recognition, and generalization.  To gather qualiktative data for the study, observations and interviews were conducted. A total of eight students in their third year of the technology program at an upper secondary school, who were taking Programming 1 as a mandatory part of their program, were studied. The collected data was analyzed using thematic analysis.  The thematic analysis resulted in a concept map that visualizes how students' behaviors during task-solving can be understood in terms of the abilities within computational thinking. The analysis revealed that all the examined abilities were present to some extent, but students utilized abstraction and algorithmic thinking to a greater extent and with more confidence compared to decomposition and pattern recognition.