scholarly journals Computational Thinking Skills of Turkish and Indian Teacher Candidates: A Comparative Study

Author(s):  
Recep ÇAKIR

The aim of this study is to compare computational thinking skills of teacher candidates who are educated in Turkey and India. For this purpose, 555 male and 212 female who are students in the Faculty of Education at a University in Turkey and, 239 male and 493 female who are students in Faculty of Education at University of Madras in India. Within the scope of the research, the “computer thinking skill levels scale" developed by Korkmaz, Çakır and Özden (2017) to measure the computer thinking skills of university students in Turkey was used. The scale consists of 29 items and five factors. The Cronbach alpha of Scale’ Turkish form is .822 and, Indian form is .769. Mean, standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA analyses were run on the collected data. According to the results, computational thinking skills of Indian teacher candidates are generally quite high, whereas Turkish teacher candidates are moderately high, and in both groups the students' highest level in term of factors is creativity, and the lowest one is problem-solving skill.

Author(s):  
Nor Hasbiah Ubaidullah ◽  
Zulkifley Mohamed ◽  
Jamilah Hamid ◽  
Suliana Sulaiman ◽  
Rahmah Lob Yussof

Admittedly, the teaching and learning of programming courses in the computer science and information technology programs have been extremely challenging. Currently, most instructors depend on either the problem-solving technique or the metacognitive technique to help students develop a range of cognitive skills, including metacognitive skills, which are important in the development of a strong computational thinking skill required for 21st-century learning. Studies focusing on the practices of instructors in using both techniques are scarce, thus motivating the researchers to carry out this study. This study was based on a qualitative approach involving a case-study design in which five (5) male and five (5) female instructors were selected from 10 pre-university centers in Malaysia as the respondents and participants in an intervention program. The research instruments used were an interview checklist and intervention guidelines. As anticipated, the findings showed that the activities of each technique could only help students develop certain sub-skills of the computational thinking skill, thus underscoring the need for instructors to integrate both techniques in their teaching practices. Thus, it could be reasoned that using either the metacognitive technique or the problem-solving technique alone would not be sufficient to help students develop strong computational thinking skills, as each technique has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it becomes imperative for instructors to leverage the strengths of both techniques by integrating both of them in the teaching and learning of programming courses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 600-612
Author(s):  
elif selcan öztay

The media and mass media, which are used extensively in our age, affect individuals in terms of political, cultural, economic and education. The correct and critical use of media requires media literacy and critical thinking skills, among 21st-century skills. Individuals with these skills are required to interpret, evaluate and analyze the information obtained through mass media with a critical perspective. The concept of media literacy is an interdisciplinary concept that falls under the scope of both communication sciences and educational sciences. The aim of the study is to reveal the media literacy and critical thinking skill levels of teacher candidates and the relationship between media literacy and critical thinking skill levels. The survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The study sample consists of 185 Science, Turkish and Classroom teacher candidates studying at different grade levels in the education faculty of a state university in the 2018-2019 academic year. Data were collected using a personal information form, Media Literacy Scale and Critical Thinking Tendency Scale. In the data analysis, descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to look at the normality of the distributions, Mann-Whitney test and Kruskal-Wallis test to look at the difference between the variables were used. As a result of the study, it was found that pre-service teachers’ media literacy and critical thinking skills did not show a significant difference according to gender, duration of internet use and the primary function they sought in TV programs. In addition, while the critical thinking skill level of the pre-service teacher does not differ according to the grade level and department, the media literacy skill levels of the pre-service teachers vary according to the grade level and department. In terms of social media tools, it was found that pre-service teachers with high critical thinking levels preferred to use Twitter more, while pre-service teachers with high media literacy levels preferred Twitter and Facebook. In addition, it has been determined that there is a statistically positive relationship between critical thinking and media literacy levels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 754-760
Author(s):  
Alparslan Ince ◽  

The aim of this study was to compare the relationship between physical education and sports high school students' positive thinking skill levels and attitudes of learning in terms of gender and years of doing sports. The study is a descriptive method, one of the quantitative research methods. The study group consisted of 280 (age: 20.98 ± 1.390) university students from School of Physical Education and Sports in Ordu university. As a result, it was concluded that the students' positive thinking skills were at a high level, and the nature of learning, anxiety, expectation, and openness to learning sub-dimensions of the attitude tolearning scale were at high levels. It was concluded that there is a statistically significant and positive relationship between the nature of learning, Expectation, and openness to learning, and positive thinking skill from sub-dimensions of the attitude to learning scale, but there is a negatively significant relationship between anxiety and positive thinking skills


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
Titik Rahayu ◽  
Kamisah Osman

The trending topic in today's education is computational thinking skills which are used to help to solve complicated problems easier. This study aims to identify the level of knowledge and self-confidence of science teacher candidates (physics and biology) on computational thinking skills. The survey research design was used through a mixed-method approach by combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative study involved 1016 randomly selected groups of science teachers whilein the qualitative study, eight science teachers were chosen based on the scores obtained from the quantitative study. The questionnaire was used as a quantitative data collecting technique to analyze descriptive statistics. Then, an interview was used as the qualitative data collecting technique and was analyzed through theme creation. The findings show that science teacher candidates have a high level of knowledge and self-confidence. The implication of this study is very important for teacher candidates because computational thinking can help to facilitate problems solving in everyday life. Teacher candidates need to be given knowledge and understanding of computational thinking skills, to have readiness and self-confidence in facing the challenges of the learning in the 21st-century


Author(s):  
Kalliopi Kanaki ◽  
Michail Kalogiannakis ◽  
Dimitrios Stamovlasis

This chapter presents part of a wider project aimed at developing computational thinking assessment instruments for first and second grade primary school students. The applicability of the specific proposed tool, which concerns merely the algorithmic thinking (AT), was tested within the Environmental Study course (ESc). The main pillar of the work is the computational environment PhysGramming. The assessment of AT was based on mental tasks involving puzzles which require AT abilities. The AT test comprised of four puzzles with 4, 6, 9, and 12 pieces respectively, and the puzzle-solving performance was measured at the nominal level (success/failure). Latent class analysis (LCA), a robust multivariate method for categorical data, was implemented, which distinguished two clusters/latent classes corresponding to two distinct levels of AT. Moreover, LCA with covariates, such as gender, grade, achievement in ESc, and the use of plan revealed the association of the above variables with the AT skill-levels. Finally, the results and their implications for theory and practice are discussed.


Author(s):  
Thiago Schumacher Barcelos ◽  
Ismar Frango Silveira

On the one hand, ensuring that students archive adequate levels of Mathematical knowledge by the time they finish basic education is a challenge for the educational systems in several countries. On the other hand, the pervasiveness of computer-based devices in everyday situations poses a fundamental question about Computer Science being part of those known as basic sciences. The development of Computer Science (CS) is historically related to Mathematics; however, CS is said to have singular reasoning mechanics for problem solving, whose applications go beyond the frontiers of Computing itself. These problem-solving skills have been defined as Computational Thinking skills. In this chapter, the possible relationships between Math and Computational Thinking skills are discussed in the perspective of national curriculum guidelines for Mathematics of Brazil, Chile, and United States. Three skills that can be jointly developed by both areas are identified in a literature review. Some challenges and implications for educational research and practice are also discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh G. Clark

The Council on Social Work Education's standards requires the teaching and measurement of critical thinking skills at both the baccalaureate and masters level of social work education. How to measure those skills is a difficult question for educators. Equally difficult is determining whether the skills are being taught to social work students. This research is the result of a study begun in 1998 that compared scores on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) of recently graduated BSW students and MSW students who had completed their degree or were in their last semester. Surprisingly, little difference seems to exist between the critical thinking skill levels of BSW and MSW students.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 01059
Author(s):  
Sibel Demir Kaçan ◽  
Fatma Şahin

The research aims to determine the “relationship between the scientific creative thinking skills and creative problem solving and project development skills of candidate science teachers.” The research was performed with 24 teacher candidates in the control group and 24 teacher candidates in the experimental group in the second class of the Department of Science Teaching in a university in Istanbul Province. In the experimental group of the research, the laboratory program to be designed by the researchers on the basis of scientific discussion and research; and in the control group, the conventionally designed laboratory program were applied for 14 weeks. The research data was gained through “Self-Assessment for Creativity Questionnaire” to be developed by Raudsepp [28] and adapted by Sungur [30] into Turkish with the reliability value by Gülel [11]; two projects which were “the kite project”, “bridge project from spaghetti macaroni” and “personal interviews”. The conclusions to be reached by the research are in favour of the experimental group and the last application. While it was found that the project development processes of the candidate teachers in the experiment group had an important impact on their scientific creativity, the positive opinions of the candidate teachers were also found.


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