Abstract
Computational thinking (CT) has become a skill that is taught starting from an early age with its increasing popularity. In addition, the opinion that CT is related to other 21st century skills finds its place in the literature. The main purpose of this study is to identify the contributions of scaffolding-based game programming activities to students' CT and 21st-century skills. In line with this purpose, the study was designed as a qualitative case study. The participants of the study consisted of 16 primary school students, 10 pre-service ICT Teachers, and 2 primary school teachers. The research results reveal that game programming has a positive effect on students' CT skills, 21st century skills and some psychometric variables like self-confidence and motivation. In future studies and implementations, educators may support their instructions of programming through different scaffolding strategies. In addition, it should be taken into consideration that students can become innovative designers with content that they find interesting.
Highlights
In modern societies, people need diverse skills to maintain their lives more conveniently
Recent studies have shown that children can learn coding even at early ages and coding education improves the skills that students should have in the 21st century (Bermingham et al, 2013; Zimmerman, 2007)
The main purpose of this study is to identify the contributions of scaffolding-based game programming activities to students' Computational thinking (CT) and 21st-century skills
Summary
People need diverse skills to maintain their lives more conveniently. The common points involve creative, innovative, collaborative and computational thinking skills (PFC, 2018; van Laar, van Deursen, van Dijk, & de Haan, 2017; Chalkiadaki, 2018). Teaching these skills requires updating education programs along with the advancing technology and enabling students to perform the necessary activities. Cetin (2012) has shown in his study that was carried out with 5th-grade students that teaching coding to students had a positive impact on their problem-solving skills. Lindh and Holgersson (2007) investigated the impacts of robotic toys (legos) on mathematics and problem-solving skills in their study, yet did not find a significant difference between the control and experimental groups. The study revealed that students who enjoyed problem-solving activities had higher levels of achievement, and students who had lego-logo training became more successful in the following years
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