Informatics in Education

The paper presents graduates results in computer science testing according to their dependence from students’ gender, family socioeconomic status, and the type of prosperity of the locality of the school in Lithuania. It was found that the gender of the graduate does not affect the results in computer science test. However, the girls who chooses to take the Computer Science Matura Exam make up only 1/5 of all graduates. Meanwhile, the socioeconomic status of the student’s family, the way of travel to and from school and the type of locality prosperity systematically does affect the results of computer science test of graduates. The entire population of Lithuanian general education school graduates (N = 2208) who chose to take the Computer Science Matura Exam in 2023 was investigated. Testing was administered centrally using a standardized test. As a hypothesis the insights were formulated on how to improve the computer science didactic system in the country’s general education sector. On the basis of empirical data, conclusions and specific recommendations were formulated to improve the system of didactics of informatics in the field of general education in the country.

Programmed control systems are ubiquitous in the present-day world. In current educational practice, however, these systems are hardly being addressed, and little is known about children’s spontaneous understandings about such systems. Therefore, we explored pupils’ understandings prior to instruction in three concrete settings: a car park, an elevator, and an autonomous robot. We analysed written responses from 49 Grade 3 (aged 7 to 10) and Grade 6 pupils (aged 10 to 13) to assess their understandings from two perspectives: the user and the system programmer perspective. Results indicate that most pupils were capable describing programmed systems from a user perspective point of view but found it hard to describe the system programmer perspective. Substantial differences were found between the contexts. The car park context evoked richer descriptions for the user perspective and the system programmer perspective in comparison to the elevator and autonomous robot contexts.

Critical thinking is a fundamental skill for 21st-century citizens, and it should be promoted from elementary school and developed in computing education. However, assessing the development of critical thinking in educational contexts presents unique challenges. In this study, a systematic mapping was carried out to investigate how to assess the development of critical thinking, or some of its skills, in K-12 computing teaching. The results indicate that primary studies on the development of critical thinking in K-12 computing education are concentrated in Asian countries, mainly focusing on teaching concepts such as algorithms and programming. Moreover, the studies do not present a fixed set of critical thinking skills assessed, and the skills are selected according to specific teaching and research needs. Most of the studies adopted student self-assessment using instruments that are well-known in the literature for assessing critical thinking. Many studies measured the quality of instruments for their research, obtaining favorable results and demonstrating consistency. However, the research points to a need for more diversity in assessment methods beyond student self-assessment. The findings suggest a need for more comprehensive and diverse critical thinking assessments in K-12 computing education, covering different educational stages and computing education concepts. This research aims to guide educators and researchers in developing more effective critical thinking assessments for K-12 computing education.

In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of cooperative learning on the computational thinking skills and academic performances of middle school students in the computational problem-solving approach. We used the pretest-posttest control group design of the quasi-experimental method. In the research, computational problem-solving activities regarding 6th graders' goals of the "heat and matter" unit, were applied individually by Group 1 and cooperative learning by Group 2. These activities required students to use computational thinking skills and code using the Python programming language. The study involved 34 students from the 6th grade of a private middle school located in the capital city of Turkey. The Computational Thinking Test (CTt) and an academic achievement test were used as pre-tests and post-tests to monitor students' computational thinking skills and academic performances. Additionally, computational problem-solving activities were scored to track the progress of students' computational thinking abilities. Non-parametric Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon T-tests were utilized to analyze the progression of pupils' computational thinking abilities and academic success, and ANCOVA was used to analyze CTt scores. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews at the end of the process to determine students' views on the computational problem-solving process. Results revealed a significant increase in students' academic achievement and computational thinking skills in both groups. A comparison of post-test scores showed no significant difference between groups. It is anticipated that the research results will make meaningful contributions to the literature concerning the progress of computational thinking skills in secondary school students.