Educational Practices in Computational Thinking: Assessment, Pedagogical Aspects, Limits, and Possibilities: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract

AbstractComputational thinking (CT) concept is still ill-defined despite being used in several studies and educational practices in the K-12 educational context. Many educational aspects associated with CT teaching require the understanding of learning approaches. Aiming to advance in CT comprehension we performed a second systematic mapping study aggregating new data to our previous study [71], adding 35 new articles to the discussion. Our main research question is “Which approaches exist for the assessment of computational thinking (CT) in the context of K-12 education?” Our findings indicate that 77% of the publications are from between 2016 and July 2019. Description of one CT implementation approach is common to 75% of the publications and most of them are “CT across the curriculum”. The most used tool is Scratch. Constructivism and constructionism are the most common pedagogical foundation. CT concepts that are more assessed are “algorithm”, “abstraction” and “decomposition”. “Pre or post-test/survey/questionnaire” are more usual assessment instruments. Test or questionnaire, where each item is scored, are the most usual method to weight assessments. We found just one study with strong psychometric rigor and other four have the potential for that. However, despite the amount of literature on the topic, it is still difficult to assess CT due to the lack of consensus about its definition, and consequently of a reliable construct. Also, pedagogical and psychological issues related to children development have to be deepened. Then research in this area must continue to allow advances in K12 CT educational context.KeywordsComputational thinkingAssessmentCT concepts constructivism