Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

skip to main content
10.1145/3488042.3490024acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pageskoli-callingConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Three +1 Perspectives on Computational Thinking

Published: 18 November 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Computational Thinking (CT) is a highly contentious subject with many diverging meanings and definitions. This study presents a preliminary literature review of 71 peer-reviewed articles on CT. The papers indicate the existence of five main aspects that have historically been used in association with its definition: Algorithm, Abstraction, Modelling, Simulation, and Implementation. Based on this preliminary literature study, semi-structured interviews with eight CT scholars are conducted, in order to evaluate these aspects and to identify qualitatively different perspectives on CT, which integrate the mentioned aspects in different ways. From the interviews, three different perspectives emerged, focusing on: Reasoning, Simplification, and Automation. Furthermore, the goal of having computationally educated citizens is extrapolated from the interviews, indicating an additional perspective (+1) titled Empowerment, which appears as embedded within all the previous three perspectives. This paper proposes to put these three (+1) perspectives in dialogue, in an effort to support researchers and practitioners working with CT across different fields.

References

[1]
Friday Joseph Agbo, Solomon Sunday Oyelere, Jarkko Suhonen, and Sunday Adewumi. 2019. A systematic review of computational thinking approach for programming education in higher education institutions. In Proceedings of the 19th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. 1–10.
[2]
Alfred V Aho. 2011. Ubiquity symposium: Computation and computational thinking. Ubiquity 2011, January (2011).
[3]
Juan-Francisco Alvarez-Herrero 2020. Pensamiento computacional en Educación Infantil, más allá de los robots de suelo. (2020).
[4]
Charoula Angeli and Michail Giannakos. 2020. Computational thinking education: Issues and challenges. Computers in Human Behavior 105 (2020), 106185.
[5]
Charoula Angeli and Nicos Valanides. 2020. Developing young children’s computational thinking with educational robotics: An interaction effect between gender and scaffolding strategy. Computers in Human Behavior 105 (2020), 105954.
[6]
Ashley Ater-Kranov, Robert Bryant, Genevieve Orr, Scott Wallace, and Mo Zhang. 2010. Developing a community definition and teaching modules for computational thinking: accomplishments and challenges. In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Information technology education. 143–148.
[7]
Alan F Blackwell, Luke Church, and Thomas RG Green. 2008. The Abstract is an Enemy: Alternative Perspectives to Computational Thinking. In PPIG. 5.
[8]
Karen Brennan and Mitchel Resnick. 2012. New frameworks for studying and assessing the development of computational thinking. In Proceedings of the 2012 annual meeting of the American educational research association, Vancouver, Canada, Vol. 1. 25.
[9]
Loren Britton, Goda Klumbyte, and Claude Draude. 2019. Doing thinking: revisiting computing with artistic research and technofeminism. Digital Creativity 30, 4 (2019), 313–328.
[10]
Francisco Buitrago Flórez, Rubby Casallas, Marcela Hernández, Alejandro Reyes, Silvia Restrepo, and Giovanna Danies. 2017. Changing a generation’s way of thinking: Teaching computational thinking through programming. Review of Educational Research 87, 4 (2017), 834–860.
[11]
Alan Bundy. 2007. Computational thinking is pervasive. Journal of Scientific and Practical Computing 1, 2 (2007), 67–69.
[12]
Elisa Nadire Caeli and Jeppe Bundsgaard. 2019. Datalogisk tænkning og teknologiforståelse i folkeskolen tur-retur. Tidsskriftet Læring og Medier (LOM) 11, 19 (2019), 30–30.
[13]
Elisa Nadire Caeli and Martin Dybdal. 2020. Teknologiforståelse i skolens praksis. Tidsskriftet Læring og Medier (LOM) 12, 22 (2020).
[14]
Michael E Caspersen, Judith Gal-Ezer, Andrew McGettrick, and Enrico Nardelli. 2019. Informatics as a fundamental discipline for the 21st century. Commun. ACM 62, 4 (2019), 58–58.
[15]
Michael E Caspersen, Ole Sejer Iversen, Mogens Nielsen, Hermes Arthur Hjorth, and Line Have Musaeus. 2018. Computational Thinking — hvorfor, hvad og hvordan?: Efter opdrag fra Villum Fondens bestyrelse. (2018).
[16]
Morgane Chevalier, Christian Giang, Alberto Piatti, and Francesco Mondada. 2020. Fostering computational thinking through educational robotics: A model for creative computational problem solving. International Journal of STEM Education 7, 1 (2020), 1–18.
[17]
Douglas E Comer, David Gries, Michael C Mulder, Allen Tucker, A Joe Turner, and Paul R Young. 1989. Computing as a discipline. Commun. ACM 32, 1 (1989), 9–23.
[18]
Computer-Science-Teachers-Association. [n. d.]. Computational Thinking operational definition. https://k12cs.org/computational-thinking/
[19]
Miguel Á Conde, Francisco J Rodríguez-Sedano, Camino Fernández-Llamas, José Gonçalves, José Lima, and Francisco J García-Peñalvo. 2021. Fostering STEAM through challenge-based learning, robotics, and physical devices: A systematic mapping literature review. Computer Applications in Engineering Education 29, 1 (2021), 46–65.
[20]
Valentina Dagienė, Tatjana Jevsikova, Gabrielė Stupurienė, and Anita Juškevičienė. 2021. Teaching computational thinking in primary schools: Worldwide trends and teachers’ attitudes. Computer Science and Information Systems00 (2021), 33–33.
[21]
Ole-Johan Dahl. 2004. The Birth of Object Orientation: the Simula Languages. In From Object-Orientation to Formal Methods: Essays in Memory of Ole-Johan Dahl, Olaf Owe, Stein Krogdahl, and Tom Lyche (Eds.). Springer, Berlin, Germany, 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39993-3_3
[22]
Imke de Jong and Johan Jeuring. 2020. Computational Thinking Interventions in Higher Education: A Scoping Literature Review of Interventions Used to Teach Computational Thinking. In Koli Calling’20: Proceedings of the 20th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. 1–10.
[23]
Andreas Dengel and Ute Heuer. 2018. A curriculum of computational thinking as a central idea of information & media literacy. In Proceedings of the 13th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. 1–6.
[24]
Peter J Denning. 2007. Computing is a natural science. Commun. ACM 50, 7 (2007), 13–18.
[25]
Peter J. Denning. 2009. The Profession of IT Beyond Computational Thinking. Commun. ACM 52, 6 (June 2009), 28–30. https://doi.org/10.1145/1516046.1516054
[26]
Peter J Denning. 2010. Ubiquity symposium’What is computation?’ Opening statement. Ubiquity 2010, November (2010).
[27]
Peter J Denning. 2018. Where to from here?ACM Inroads 9, 4 (2018), 17–21.
[28]
Cambridge Dictionary. [n. d.]. Engineering. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/engineering?q=Engineering
[29]
Edsger W Dijkstra. 1974. Programming as a discipline of mathematical nature. The American Mathematical Monthly 81, 6 (1974), 608–612.
[30]
Andrea A DiSessa. 2001. Changing minds: Computers, learning, and literacy. Mit Press.
[31]
Nina Bonderup Dohn, Stig Børsen Hansen, and Jens Jørgen Hansen. 2019. Designing for situated knowledge transformation. Routledge.
[32]
Thomas A Easton. 2006. Beyond the algorithmization of the sciences. Commun. ACM 49, 5 (2006), 31–33.
[33]
W Edmonds and T Kennedy. 2017. Mixed methods. An applied guide to research designs(2017), 177–180.
[34]
AP Ershov. 1981. Programming, the second literacy. Microprocessing and Microprogramming 8, 1 (1981), 1–9.
[35]
Louis Fein. 1959. The Role of the University in Computers, Data Processing, and Related Fields. In Papers Presented at the the March 3-5, 1959, Western Joint Computer Conference(San Francisco, California) (IRE-AIEE-ACM ’59 (Western)). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 119–126. https://doi.org/10.1145/1457838.1457859
[36]
Cristian Ferrada, Javier Carrillo-Rosúa, Danilo A Díaz-Levicoy, and Francisco Silva-Díaz. 2020. La robótica desde las áreas STEM en Educación Primaria: una revisión sistemática. (2020).
[37]
José Figueiredo and Francisco J García-Peñalvo. 2017. Improving computational thinking using follow and give instructions. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality. 1–7.
[38]
Andreas Fischer, Samuel Greiff, and Joachim Funke. 2017. The history of complex problem solving. (2017).
[39]
George E Forsythe. 1967. A university’s educational program in computer science. Commun. ACM 10, 1 (1967), 3–11.
[40]
George E Forsythe. 1968. What to do till the computer scientist comes. The American Mathematical Monthly 75, 5 (1968), 454–462.
[41]
Julian Fraillon, John Ainley, Wolfram Schulz, Daniel Duckworth, and Tim Friedman. 2019. IEA international computer and information literacy study 2018 assessment framework. Springer Nature.
[42]
Barney G Glaser and Anselm L Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research: Aldine Transaction. New Brunswick, NJ (1967).
[43]
Saul Gorn. 1963. The computer and information sciences: a new basic discipline. SIAM Rev. 5, 2 (1963), 150–155.
[44]
Sarah Gretter and Aman Yadav. 2016. Computational thinking and media & information literacy: An integrated approach to teaching twenty-first century skills. TechTrends 60, 5 (2016), 510–516.
[45]
Mark Guzdial. 2008. Education Paving the way for computational thinking. Commun. ACM 51, 8 (2008), 25–27.
[46]
Joachim Halse, Eva Brandt, Brendon Clark, and Thomas Binder. 2010. Rehearsing the future. The Danish Design School Press.
[47]
Richard Wesley Hamming. 1969. One man’s view of computer science. Journal of the ACM (JACM) 16, 1 (1969), 3–12.
[48]
Ting-Chia Hsu, Shao-Chen Chang, and Yu-Ting Hung. 2018. How to learn and how to teach computational thinking: Suggestions based on a review of the literature. Computers & Education 126 (2018), 296–310.
[49]
Ole Sejer Iversen, Rachel Charlotte Smith, and Christian Dindler. 2018. From computational thinking to computational empowerment: a 21st century PD agenda. In Proceedings of the 15th Participatory Design Conference: Full Papers-Volume 1. 1–11.
[50]
Yasmin Kafai, Chris Proctor, and Debora Lui. 2020. From theory bias to theory dialogue: embracing cognitive, situated, and critical framings of computational thinking in K-12 CS education. ACM Inroads 11, 1 (2020), 44–53.
[51]
Ken Kahn. 2017. A half-century perspective on Computational Thinking. Tecnologias, sociedade e conhecimento 4, 1 (2017), 23–42.
[52]
Zachary Kaiser. 2019. Creativity as Computation: Teaching Design in the Age of Automation. Design and Culture 11, 2 (2019), 173–192.
[53]
Donald L Katz. 1960. Conference report on the use of computers in engineering classroom instruction. Commun. ACM 3, 10 (1960), 522–527.
[54]
Donald E Knuth. 1974. Computer science and its relation to mathematics. The American Mathematical Monthly 81, 4 (1974), 323–343.
[55]
Donald E Knuth. 1985. Algorithmic thinking and mathematical thinking. The American Mathematical Monthly 92, 3 (1985), 170–181.
[56]
Siu-Cheung Kong and Harold Abelson. 2019. Computational thinking education. Springer Nature.
[57]
Bill Kules. 2016. Computational thinking is critical thinking: Connecting to university discourse, goals, and learning outcomes. Proceedings of the association for information science and technology 53, 1 (2016), 1–6.
[58]
A Labusch, B Eickelmann, and M Vennemann. 2019. Computational Thinking Processes and Their Congruence with Problem-Solving and Information Processing. In Computational Thinking Education. Springer, Singapore, 65–78.
[59]
P Larsson, Mikko-Ville Apiola, and Mikko-Jussi Laakso. 2019. The uniqueness of computational thinking. In 2019 42nd International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO). IEEE, 687–692.
[60]
Irene Lee, Shuchi Grover, Fred Martin, Sarita Pillai, and Joyce Malyn-Smith. 2020. Computational thinking from a disciplinary perspective: Integrating computational thinking in K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Journal of Science Education and Technology 29, 1 (2020), 1–8.
[61]
Yeping Li, Alan H Schoenfeld, Andrea A diSessa, Arthur C Graesser, Lisa C Benson, Lyn D English, and Richard A Duschl. 2020. Computational thinking is more about thinking than computing., 18 pages.
[62]
Richard E Mayer, Jennifer L Dyck, and William Vilberg. 1986. Learning to program and learning to think: what’s the connection?Commun. ACM 29, 7 (1986), 605–610.
[63]
Patrick Mendelsohn, TRG Green, and Paul Brna. 1990. Programming languages in education: The search for an easy start. In Psychology of programming. Elsevier, 175–200.
[64]
Microsoft. 2011. The Software Crisis: A Brief Look at How Rework Shaped the Evolution of Software Methodolgies. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/karchworld_identity/the-software-crisis-a-brief-look-at-how-rework-shaped-the-evolution-of-software-methodolgies
[65]
Thilde Emilie Møller, Vibeke Schrøder, and Mads Middelboe Rehder. 2019. Lærerfaglig teknologiforståelse. Studier i læreruddannelse og-profession 4, 1 (2019), 125–143.
[66]
Chrystalla Mouza, Yi-Cheng Pan, Hui Yang, and Lori Pollock. 2020. A multiyear investigation of student computational thinking concepts, practices, and perspectives in an after-school computing program. Journal of Educational Computing Research 58, 5 (2020), 1029–1056.
[67]
Enrico Nardelli. 2019. Do we really need computational thinking?Commun. ACM 62, 2 (2019), 32–35.
[68]
Peter Naur. 1966. Plan for et kursus i datalogi og datamatik. A/S Regnecentralen.
[69]
Allen Newell, Alan J Perlis, and Herbert A Simon. 1967. Computer science. Science 157, 3795 (1967), 1373–1374.
[70]
Lexico Oxford dictionary. [n. d.]. Automation. https://www.lexico.com/definition/automaton
[71]
Tauno Palts and Margus Pedaste. 2020. A model for developing computational thinking skills. Informatics in Education 19, 1 (2020), 113–128.
[72]
Seymour A Papert. 1980. Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. Basic books.
[73]
David Lorge Parnas. 1999. Software engineering programs are not computer science programs. IEEE software 16, 6 (1999), 19–30.
[74]
Arnold Pears. 2019. Developing Computational Thinking,“Fad” or “Fundamental”?Constructivist Foundations 14, 3 (2019), 410–412.
[75]
Magda Pischetola. 2021. Teacher professional development in Higher Education and the Teknosofikum project. LearningTech 10, 1 (2021), 46–75.
[76]
Jake A Qualls and Linda B Sherrell. 2010. Why computational thinking should be integrated into the curriculum. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges 25, 5 (2010), 66–71.
[77]
Sharon M Ravitch and Nicole Mittenfelner Carl. 2019. Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Sage Publications.
[78]
Emily Relkin, Laura de Ruiter, and Marina Umaschi Bers. 2020. TechCheck: Development and validation of an unplugged assessment of computational thinking in early childhood education. Journal of Science Education and Technology 29 (2020), 482–498.
[79]
Peter J Rich, Stacie L Mason, and Jared O’Leary. 2021. Measuring the effect of continuous professional development on elementary teachers’ self-efficacy to teach coding and computational thinking. Computers & Education 168 (2021), 104196.
[80]
Barbara Sabitzer, Heike Demarle-Meusel, and Maria Jarnig. 2018. Computational thinking through modeling in language lessons. In 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). IEEE, 1913–1919.
[81]
Cynthia Selby and John Woollard. 2013. Computational thinking: the developing definition. (2013).
[82]
Valerie J Shute, Chen Sun, and Jodi Asbell-Clarke. 2017. Demystifying computational thinking. Educational Research Review 22 (2017), 142–158.
[83]
Hyo-Jeong So, Morris Siu-Yung Jong, and Chen-Chung Liu. 2020. Computational thinking education in the Asian Pacific region.
[84]
Thomas Hvid Spangsberg and Martin Brynskov. 2017. Towards a dialectic relationship between the implicit and explicit nature of computational thinking: a computer semiotics perspective. In Proceedings of the 17th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. 197–198.
[85]
Xiaodan Tang, Yue Yin, Qiao Lin, Roxana Hadad, and Xiaoming Zhai. 2020. Assessing computational thinking: A systematic review of empirical studies. Computers & Education 148 (2020), 103798.
[86]
L Tanggaard and Svend Brinkmann. 2015. Interviewet: Samtalen som forskningsmetode, I Kvalitative Metoder. Hans Reitzels Forlag, København(2015), 29–53.
[87]
Matti Tedre and Peter J. Denning. 2016. The Long Quest for Computational Thinking. In Proceedings of the 16th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli, Finland) (Koli Calling ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 120–129. https://doi.org/10.1145/2999541.2999542
[88]
Ari Tuhkala, Marie-Louise Wagner, Ole Sejer Iversen, and Tommi Kärkkäinen. 2019. Technology Comprehension—Combining computing, design, and societal reflection as a national subject. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 20 (2019), 54–63.
[89]
Annette Vee. 2013. Understanding computer programming as a literacy. Literacy in Composition Studies 1, 2 (2013), 42–64.
[90]
Xuefeng Wei, Lin Lin, Nanxi Meng, Wei Tan, Siu-Cheung Kong, 2021. The effectiveness of partial pair programming on elementary school students’ computational thinking skills and self-efficacy. Computers & Education 160 (2021), 104023.
[91]
Computer Science Wiki. [n. d.]. Abstraction. https://computersciencewiki.org/index.php/Abstraction
[92]
Jeannette M Wing. 2006. Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49, 3 (2006), 33–35.
[93]
Jeannette M Wing. 2008. Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 366, 1881 (2008), 3717–3725.
[94]
Gary Ka-Wai Wong and Ho-Yin Cheung. 2020. Exploring children’s perceptions of developing twenty-first century skills through computational thinking and programming. Interactive Learning Environments 28, 4 (2020), 438–450.
[95]
Osman Yaşar. 2018. A new perspective on computational thinking. Commun. ACM 61, 7 (2018), 33–39.
[96]
Osman Yasar and Rubin H Landau. 2003. Elements of computational science and engineering education. SIAM review 45, 4 (2003), 787–805.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Desirable and realistic futures of the university: a mixed-methods study with teachers in DenmarkInternational Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education10.1186/s41239-024-00459-021:1Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Programming education across disciplines: a nationwide study of Danish higher educationHigher Education10.1007/s10734-024-01345-4Online publication date: 6-Dec-2024
  • (2023)Design and use of domain-specific programming platforms: interdisciplinary computational thinking with EarSketch and TunePadComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2023.224065734:4(645-678)Online publication date: 28-Jul-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
Koli Calling '21: Proceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research
November 2021
287 pages
ISBN:9781450384889
DOI:10.1145/3488042
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 November 2021

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Conference

Koli Calling '21

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 80 of 182 submissions, 44%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)22
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)4
Reflects downloads up to 13 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Desirable and realistic futures of the university: a mixed-methods study with teachers in DenmarkInternational Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education10.1186/s41239-024-00459-021:1Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Programming education across disciplines: a nationwide study of Danish higher educationHigher Education10.1007/s10734-024-01345-4Online publication date: 6-Dec-2024
  • (2023)Design and use of domain-specific programming platforms: interdisciplinary computational thinking with EarSketch and TunePadComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2023.224065734:4(645-678)Online publication date: 28-Jul-2023
  • (2023)The situated power of computational empowermentInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10057636:COnline publication date: 1-Jun-2023

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media