A validity and reliability study of the Turkish computational thinking scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to adapt the computational thinking scale developed by Tsai, Liang and Hsu (2021) into Turkish in order to determine the computational thinking skill levels of secondary school students according to such basic elements defined by Selby and Woollard (2013) as abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic thinking, evaluation and generalization and to do the related validity and reliability study. A total of 454 high school students (9th – 12th grade) determined with the convenient sampling method constituted the sample of the study. The original scale was made up of 19 5-point Likert-type items. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to examine the conformity of the data collected via the adapted scale to the five-factor structure of the original scale. As a result of CFA, it was seen that the factor structure of the original scale was preserved. The reliability of the scale was checked with the internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale and its factors. The Cronbach Alpha coefficients obtained were .840 for the whole scale and .734 for the abstraction factor, .734 for the decomposition factor, .770 for the algorithmic thinking factor, .835 for the evaluation factor and .730 for the generalization factor. The scale's Turkish translation was found to be a valid and trustworthy measurement tool for establishing the computational thinking proficiency levels of students in high school.