Share Paper: Assessing Computational Thinking and Programming Skills: Preliminary study of fourth-grade students

  1. Greg Lee, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
  2. Pei-Chun Chen, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Tuesday, November 5 4:15 PM-5:30 PM Galerie 1-3

Abstract: In this study, a preliminary study of students’ computational thinking and programming ability was conducted. 458 fourth-grade students studied visual programming for six-weeks. A Blockly-based programming assessment tool and three goal-based tasks were developed to test students’ learning outcome. The study found that 20% and 63% of students were able to solve 2 and 3 tasks, respectively. The assessment result coincides with teacher’s expectation that students should able to solve at least 2 tasks in the allotted time. Qualitative analysis of the correct and incorrect programs found some common misconceptions among the students.