STEM activities for boosting pupils’ computational thinking and reducing their cognitive load: Roles of argumentation scaffolding and mental rotation

Abstract

In order to promote students’ computational thinking (CT) involving authentic complex problem-solving competence, there has been encouragement to conduct STEM activities in K-12 schools. STEM activities usually require collaborative learning. Argumentation scaffolding is one of the effective strategies for collaborative learning, and is widely used in science education but less so in the STEM curriculum. Hence, this study intended to introduce argumentation scaffolding into STEM activities while also taking into account mental rotation as a non-trivial cognitive competence affecting spatial task performance. In this study, a 2 × 2 quasi-experiment was conducted with 60 fifth graders, evenly assigned to an experimental and a control group. It was found that (1) argumentation scaffolding and mental rotation significantly boosted pupils’ CT; (2) argumentation scaffolding exerted significant effects on cognitive load; and (3) there was a significant interaction between argumentation scaffolding and mental rotation which affected CT. In sum, the argumentation scaffolding significantly improved students’ CT and reduced their cognitive load. However, mental rotation only had a substantial effect on students’ CT. This study sheds light on how to effectively integrate argumentation scaffolding into STEM activities. In tandem, mental rotation plays a crucial role in STEM activities.