Collaboration and engagement based coding training to enhance children's computational thinking self-efficacy

Although there are different definitions for computational thinking in the literature, it is possible to define it mainly as problem solving, designing and interpreting new systems by thinking like a computer. According to Wing (2006), computational thinking is a way of designing a system and understanding human behaviors by focusing on the basic concepts of the computer sciences. The recent focus on computational thinking as a key 21 st century skill for all students has led to a number of curriculum initiatives to embed it in K-12 classrooms and to introduce computing ideas to students early during their schooling years. The present study aims to explore the effects of a short, intensive coding and robotics training on the computational thinking skill self-efficacy of middle school students. 24 fifth graders participated in the study and data were collected by means of the Computational Thinking Self-efficacy scale (CTS) and one open-ended question. Analyses of the pre, post and delayed tests revealed significant differences between the pre and post-tests.