A systematic review of studies of parental involvement in computational thinking education

Abstract

ABSTRACT As the impact of digital technologies pervades on our lives at all levels, it is important for students to develop their digital literacy. Computational thinking (CT) education is one pathway helping young students to thrive in the digital world. CT is a critical reasoning process whereby people formulate and solve problems using computers. CT education relies not only on schools and teachers, but also on parents. We reviewed 34 studies of the influence of parents on their children’s CT education. We explore the following four aspects in CT education: (1) the contexts, (2) the effects regarding participation (affective, behavioral, and cognitive) outcomes in CT education, (3) the research designs, and (4) the mechanisms through which parents’ participation influences children’s CT education. Two theoretical frameworks, the tripartite model and parental involvement theory, were used to synthesize the 34 articles to analyze parents’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive participation outcomes as well as the mechanisms of parental influence on CT education. We propose a conceptual framework of parental involvement in CT education. We further provide recommendations for supporting parents’ involvement in children’s CT education by suggesting appropriate parental mindsets and strategies to maximize the effectiveness of children’s CT education.