Abstract
Software education has emerged as a hot topic around the world, with the goal to raise interests on computational thinking. However, assessments on the computational thinking have not been actively conducted thus far. According to a study by Lee (2019), which analyzed 138 papers on computational thinking published in Korean journals from 2015 to 2018, software education has been introduced and studies on computational thinking are being conducted, but studies on teaching methods that2 improve computational thinking are needed. In this study, we developed and applied a primary educational programming language(EPL) program focused on execution time analysis aimed at improving computational thinking. By using the “Bebras Challenge” as an assessment tool and SPSS as a statistical tool, educational effects were analyzed through the results of pre- and post-computational thinking assessments. The analysis outcomes showed that the EPL education focused on execution time analysis was effective in improving the computational thinking of elementary school students. Putting execution time analysis EPL into primary software education as an educational topic will be effective in improving computational thinking.
Highlights
Software education has been widely introduced and provided to elementary and middle schools in various approaches
An evaluation was conducted to analyze the effects of execution time-oriented primary educational programming language (EPL) education on the computational thinking of students
The experiment in this study successfully managed to prove that the execution time-oriented primary EPL education can improve the computational thinking ability of elementary school students and that the topic of algorithm execution time can be implemented as a useful software education topic for elementary school students
Summary
Software education has been widely introduced and provided to elementary and middle schools in various approaches. Most elementary schools currently offer basic programming education through block-based programming languages as these languages provide audiovisual elements that are suitable for the cognitive level of elementary school students and can attract their interests [1]. According to a study by Lee (2019), which analyzed 138 papers on computing thinking published in Korean journals from 2015 to 2018, software education has been introduced and studies on computing thinking skills are being conducted, but studies on teaching methods that improve computing thinking are needed [2]. This study developed an elementary educational program using execution time-oriented educational programming language (EPL) to help improve the computational thinking of elementary school students
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