research-article

CS Unplugged and Middle-School Students’ Views, Attitudes, and Intentions Regarding CS

Authors:

Mordechai Ben-AriAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), Volume 12, Issue 2

Article No.: 8, Pages 1 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/2160547.2160551

Published: 01 April 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Many students hold incorrect ideas and negative attitudes about computer science (CS). In order to address these difficulties, a series of learning activities called Computer Science Unplugged was developed by Tim Bell and his colleagues. These activities expose young people to central concepts in CS in an entertaining way without requiring a computer. The CS Unplugged activities have become more and more popular among CS educators and several activities are recommended in the ACM K-12 curriculum for elementary schools. CS Unplugged is used worldwide and has been translated into many languages.

We examined the effect of the CS Unplugged activities on middle-school students’ ideas about CS and their desire to consider and study it in high school. The results indicate that following the activities the ideas of the students on what CS is about were partially improved, but their desire to study CS lessened.

In order to provide possible explanations to these results, we analyzed the CS Unplugged activities to determine to what extent the objectives of CS Unplugged were addressed in the activities. In addition, we checked whether the activities were designed according to constructivist principles and whether they were explicitly linked to central concepts in CS. We found that only some of the objectives were addressed in the activities, that the activities do not engage with the students’ prior knowledge and that most of the activities are not explicitly linked to central concepts in CS. We offer suggestions for modifying the CS Unplugged activities so that they will be more likely to achieve their objectives.

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Cited By

Childs JZarch RDunton SMadkins TTrautmann KTaylor ZJacobson MOzturk SOttenbreit-Leftwich A(2024)Advancing Equity and Access: Addressing the Side Effects of Broadening Participation in Computer Science K–12 EducationReview of Research in Education10.3102/0091732X24128647548:1(121-153)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2024
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Mladenović MMedak LKrpan D(2024)Teaching the Bubble Sort Algorithm Using CS Unplugged Activities at the K-12 LevelACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/370612025:1(1-22)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
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Zhang CCocking CTrajkova MMock ZTate GMonden CMagerko B(2024)Fostering AI Literacy with LuminAI through Embodiment and Creativity in Informal Learning SpacesProceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition10.1145/3635636.3664255(476-481)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2024
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Index Terms

CS Unplugged and Middle-School Students’ Views, Attitudes, and Intentions Regarding CS
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computing Education

ACM Transactions on Computing Education Volume 12, Issue 2

April 2012

133 pages

EISSN:1946-6226

DOI:10.1145/2160547

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

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]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 April 2012

Accepted: 01 January 1996

Revised: 01 November 1993

Received: 01 February 1986

Published in TOCE Volume 12, Issue 2

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Cited By

Childs JZarch RDunton SMadkins TTrautmann KTaylor ZJacobson MOzturk SOttenbreit-Leftwich A(2024)Advancing Equity and Access: Addressing the Side Effects of Broadening Participation in Computer Science K–12 EducationReview of Research in Education10.3102/0091732X24128647548:1(121-153)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X241286475
Mladenović MMedak LKrpan D(2024)Teaching the Bubble Sort Algorithm Using CS Unplugged Activities at the K-12 LevelACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/370612025:1(1-22)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706120
Zhang CCocking CTrajkova MMock ZTate GMonden CMagerko B(2024)Fostering AI Literacy with LuminAI through Embodiment and Creativity in Informal Learning SpacesProceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition10.1145/3635636.3664255(476-481)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635636.3664255
Belghith YMahdavi Goloujeh AMagerko BLong DMcklin TRoberts J(2024)Testing, Socializing, Exploring: Characterizing Middle Schoolers’ Approaches to and Conceptions of ChatGPTProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642332(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Sun DOuyang FLi YZhu CZhou Y(2024)Using multimodal learning analytics to understand effects of block‐based and text‐based modalities on computer programmingJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1293940:3(1123-1136)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2024
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Gün-Tosik EGüyer T(2024)The effect of computer science unplugged on abstraction as a sub-component of computational thinkingThinking Skills and Creativity10.1016/j.tsc.2024.10155253(101552)Online publication date: Sep-2024
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Sun DLooi CLi YZhu CZhu CCheng M(2024)Block-based versus text-based programming: a comparison of learners’ programming behaviors, computational thinking skills and attitudes toward programmingEducational technology research and development10.1007/s11423-023-10328-8Online publication date: 2-Jan-2024
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Cafarella LVasconcelos L(2024)Computational thinking with game design: An action research study with middle school studentsEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-024-13010-5Online publication date: 17-Sep-2024
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Díaz-León JArbelaitz OArruarte A(2024)Introduction to informatics in a Peruvian penitentiary using cs unplugged: from university to penitentiaryEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-023-12336-w29:1(971-989)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2024
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Fanchamps Nvan Gool ESlangen LHennissen P(2024)The effect on computational thinking and identified learning aspects: Comparing unplugged smartGames with SRA-Programming with tangible or On-screen outputEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-023-11956-629:3(2999-3024)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2024
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