Computational Thinking in STEM Education among Matriculation Science Students

Abstract

In the advent of the rapid technological advancement of The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), computational thinking is recognised as an essential skill in the 21st century across all disciplines, especially in STEM, as it trains students to have the cognitive flexibility to deal with complex problem-solving. Computational thinking (CT) is naturally embedded in STEM practices in the reflection of creativity, algorithmic thinking, critical thinking, problem solving and cooperation skills. This study aimed to measure the level of computational thinking in science matriculation students and examine the effect of gender and academic achievement in STEM on CT. The convenient sampling strategy was used to identify one matriculation college in the northern region of Malaysia to participate in the study. (CTS) instrument was employed on 153 science students. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the level of CT. One-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to analyse the main effect of academic achievement in STEM on CT, followed by univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the effect on each of the dimensions of CT. The result indicates that students have a medium high level of CT with an overall mean of 3.51. In addition, the findings showed that there was a statistically significant effect of academic achievement in STEM on CT. The mean score for academic achievement revealed that good students scored the highest, followed by average students and weak students in all dimensions of CT except for cooperation. This study will provide insight into the impact of STEM learning outcomes on the development of CT to inform instructional design.

Stem Education Advancements in Nigeria: A Comprehensive Review

“…This transformation is crucial for enhancing the quality of education and preparing students for contemporary challenges. Law, Karpudewan, and Zaharudin (2021) examine the role of computational thinking in STEM education among matriculation science students. Their findings suggest that advancements in STEM education, particularly in areas like computational thinking, have significantly improved students' problem-solving and critical thinking skills, which are essential in the 21st century.…”

State of The Art Review: Building Computational Thinking on Science Education

“…In science education, CT serves as a stimulus for curiosity, experimentation, collaboration, social interaction, problem-solving, and learning. Based on this, CT is implemented and can be developed through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning practices (Burbaite, Drasute & Stuikys, 2018;Ching, Hsu & Baldwin, 2018;Città et al, 2019;En, 2021;Gilchrist et al, 2021;Li, 2020;Palts & Pedaste, 2020). STEM is capable of reflecting creativity, algorithmic thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills.…”

“…In the STEM approach, CT is a set of cognitive skills that guide learners in investigating patterns, solving problems, controlling and determining solutions, and building data representations through simulations (Tekdal, 2021). CT is optimized when it is associated with the STEM approach, leading to a more comprehensive achievement of scientific understanding (Burbaite et al, 2018;En et al, 2021).…”

“…The discovery and innovation in these stages of building CT lie in the implementation of these stages to maximize CT in science education. Stages that have not been specifically researched by scholars are task decomposition, abstraction and generalization, data structures, and algorithms (Burbaite et al, 2018;En et al, 2021). These stages are similar to abstracting problems, automating problems, abstraction, decomposition, generalization, algorithmic thinking, and evaluation (Park & Green, 2019;Silva et al, 2020).…”

Research Status in Computational Thinking in STEM Education

“…These fields often depend on computational tools for modeling and simulation, data analysis and visualization, creating computer programs to solve problems, and understanding a system as an aggregate of parts; these are characteristics of computational thinking. Hence, it can be inferred that Computational thinking (CT) is inherent to STEM practices [2]. Moreover, computational thinking is widely considered to be an important and necessary twenty-first century skill that contributes to the development of solving complex problems.…”