Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference 2013
DOI: 10.1145/2513456.2513484
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First year student performance in a test for computational thinking

Abstract: Computational thinking, a form of thinking and problem solving within computer science, has become a popular focus of research on computer science education. In this paper, we attempt to investigate the role that computational thinking plays in the experience of introductory computer science students at a South African university. To this end, we have designed and administered a test for computational thinking ability, and contrasted the results of this test with the class marks for the students involved. The … Show more

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Cited by 44 publications
(34 citation statements)
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“…This section presents a brief description of related work with the focus on the frameworks and taxonomies that are applicable to higher education with the emphasis on CS domain. Gouws et al [7] defined a framework of six distinct skills and practices that served as the foundation for the assessment design, where the intervention was applied to introductory computer science course (CS1) students. Billion-niere [1] assessed CS1 students' comprehension within abstraction, arrays of objects, and inheritance.…”
Section: Related Workmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This section presents a brief description of related work with the focus on the frameworks and taxonomies that are applicable to higher education with the emphasis on CS domain. Gouws et al [7] defined a framework of six distinct skills and practices that served as the foundation for the assessment design, where the intervention was applied to introductory computer science course (CS1) students. Billion-niere [1] assessed CS1 students' comprehension within abstraction, arrays of objects, and inheritance.…”
Section: Related Workmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Our framework is concerned with the specific case of the use of the scientific method when experimenting means programming a model of a phenomenon and running simulations with it. The scientific method consist of the following steps: (1) asking a question, (2) doing background research into the relevant matter, (3) formulating a hypothesis, (4) testing the hypothesis through an experiment, (5) analyzing data and drawing a conclusion and finally (6) reporting the results. In our view, CT includes the steps 2 through 5.…”
Section: Theoretical Background 21 Computational Thinkingmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In order to "create a profile of students' abilities in computational thinking" and "to determine whether there may be a link between computational thinking performance and success within the introductory computer science course" at their university, Gouws, Bradshaw and Wentworth [5] designed a test containing closed questions from the Computer Olympiad 'Talent Search'. The questions were categorized into the six distinct classifications of CT they recognized and focused on students' abilities in the lower three levels of Bloom's revised taxonomy.…”
Section: Assessmentmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Existing tests of computational thinking and CS knowledge created for post-secondary students vary in the extent to which they use code within the test. On one end of the codeusage spectrum is the test built by Gouws et al (2013), which contains no computer code. It is a 25-item test of computational thinking skills with both multiple-choice and constructedresponse items that were sourced from retired versions of the South African Computer Olympiad "Talent Search" screening test.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The items themselves may have been evaluated when they were created for the screening test, but detailed information about the development and evaluation of the items is not available. The evaluation provided by Gouws et al (2013) does not include traditional test-level or item-level psychometric results such as internal consistency reliability, item difficulty, or item discrimination.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%