Impact of Programming Exposure on the Development of Computational Thinking Capabilities: An Empirical Study
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http://hdl.handle.net/10045/106567
Títol: | Impact of Programming Exposure on the Development of Computational Thinking Capabilities: An Empirical Study |
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Autors: | Cachero, Cristina | Barra Hernández, Pilar | Meliá, Santiago | López, Otoniel |
Grups d'investigació o GITE: | Advanced deveLopment and empIrical research on Software (ALISoft) |
Centre, Departament o Servei: | Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos |
Paraules clau: | Programming | Computational thinking | Problem-solving | Career development | Technology social factors | Observational study |
Àrees de coneixement: | Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos |
Data de publicació: | 13-d’abril-2020 |
Editor: | IEEE |
Citació bibliogràfica: | IEEE Access. 2020, 8: 72316-72325. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2987254 |
Resum: | Today’s digital society has turned the development of students’ computational thinking capabilities into a critical factor for their future success. As higher education institutions, we need to take responsibility for this development in every degree course we offer, and provide students with the kind of subjects and activities that best contribute to this aim. In this paper, we study the impact of following an introductory programming course on the development of the computational thinking capabilities of university students. In order to achieve this aim, a concurrent cohort observational study was carried out in which we measured both the subjective and objective computational thinking capabilities of 104 participants (50 first year students enrolled on a Bachelor’s degree course in Psychology at the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), and 54 first year students enrolled on a Bachelor’s degree course in Health Information Systems at the University of Alicante (UA)). The statistical procedures applied to test our hypotheses were a two-way mixed ANOVA, a paired-sample T-test and an independent-sample T-test. The data shows that the group at UA had an initial higher subjective perception of their computational capabilities than the group at UCAM. This perception was supported by their objective scores, which were also significantly higher. However, the subjective assessment of computational capability of the UA group diminished after exposure to the programming course, contrasting with the fact that their objective computational capabilities improved significantly. In the UCAM group, both subjective and objective capabilities remained constant over time. Based on these results, we can conclude that computational thinking capabilities are not developed naturally, but need to be trained. Providing such training to all our students, and not only to those enrolled on undergraduate degrees in engineering, is of paramount importance to allow them to face the challenges of their future professions. This paper empirically demonstrates the extent to which exposing subjects to a programming course may contribute to this aim. |
Patrocinadors: | This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (Access@City) under Contract TIN2016-78103-C2-2-R, in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities under Contract RTI2018-098156-B-C54, in part by the Co-Financed by FEDER funds (MINECO/ FEDER/UE), and in part by the EduTech Project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under Grant 609785-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/10045/106567 |
ISSN: | 2169-3536 |
DOI: | 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2987254 |
Idioma: | eng |
Tipus: | info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
Drets: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Revisió científica: | si |
Versió de l'editor: | https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2987254 |
Apareix a la col·lecció: | INV - ALISoft - Artículos de Revistas |
Arxius per aquest ítem:
Arxiu | Descripció | Tamany | Format | |
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Cachero_etal_2020_IEEEAccess.pdf | 4,36 MB | Adobe PDF | Obrir Vista prèvia | |
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