scholarly journals What is the Relationship between Students’ Computational Thinking Performance and School Achievement?

Author(s):  
Yerkhan Mindetbay ◽  
Christian Bokhove ◽  
John Woollard

This study investigates the relationship between computational thinking performance and general school achievement and explores to see if computational thinking performance can be predicted by algebra and informatics achievement. The sample group of 775 grade 8 students was drawn from 28 secondary schools across Kazakhstan. The students responded to a Computational Thinking Performance test of 50 multiple-choice questions and Computational Thinking Scale questionnaire. The test covers the concepts: logical thinking, generalisation and abstraction. The validity and reliability of the multiple-choice questions are tested using the Item Response Theory. The Likert type questionnaire covers five factors: creativity, algorithmic thinking, cooperation, critical thinking and problem solving. School achievement results (secondary data) include scores for a number of school subjects. The results of the study showed that the multiple-choice questions are valid and a reliable tool to measure computational thinking performance of students. Algebra, general school achievement and students’ perception of their computational thinking skills were significant predictors of computational thinking performance. The results revealed no gender difference in computational thinking performance and perceptions of computational thinking. The findings regarding the relationship between computational thinking performance, the students’ general school achievement and perceptions of computational thinking skills are compared and discussed.

Author(s):  
J. K. Stringer ◽  
Sally A. Santen ◽  
Eun Lee ◽  
Meagan Rawls ◽  
Jean Bailey ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Analytic thinking skills are important to the development of physicians. Therefore, educators and licensing boards utilize multiple-choice questions (MCQs) to assess these knowledge and skills. MCQs are written under two assumptions: that they can be written as higher or lower order according to Bloom’s taxonomy, and students will perceive questions to be the same taxonomical level as intended. This study seeks to understand the students’ approach to questions by analyzing differences in students’ perception of the Bloom’s level of MCQs in relation to their knowledge and confidence. Methods A total of 137 students responded to practice endocrine MCQs. Participants indicated the answer to the question, their interpretation of it as higher or lower order, and the degree of confidence in their response to the question. Results Although there was no significant association between students’ average performance on the content and their question classification (higher or lower), individual students who were less confident in their answer were more than five times as likely (OR = 5.49) to identify a question as higher order than their more confident peers. Students who responded incorrectly to the MCQ were 4 times as likely to identify a question as higher order than their peers who responded correctly. Conclusions The results suggest that higher performing, more confident students rely on identifying patterns (even if the question was intended to be higher order). In contrast, less confident students engage in higher-order, analytic thinking even if the question is intended to be lower order. Better understanding of the processes through which students interpret MCQs will help us to better understand the development of clinical reasoning skills.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-10
Author(s):  
Bhoomika R. Chauhan ◽  
Jayesh Vaza ◽  
Girish R. Chauhan ◽  
Pradip R. Chauhan

Multiple choice questions are nowadays used in competitive examination and formative assessment to assess the student's eligibility and certification.Item analysis is the process of collecting,summarizing and using information from students' responses to assess the quality of test items.Goal of the study was to identify the relationship between the item difficulty index and item discriminating index in medical student's assessment. 400 final year medical students from various medical colleges responded 200 items constructed for the study.The responses were assessed and analysed for item difficulty index and item discriminating power. Item difficulty index an item discriminating power were analysed by statical methods to identify correlation.The discriminating power of the items with difficulty index in 40%-50% was the highest. Summary and Conclusion:Items with good difficulty index in range of 30%-70% are good discriminator.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kazakoff Myers

This chapter summarizes theoretical connections between computational thinking through learning to code, self-regulation, and executive function and discusses why it is important to continue exploring the intersection of executive function, self-regulation, and computational thinking, including the need to revisit the socio-cultural underpinnings of foundational self-regulation, executive function, and school readiness research. As an example, findings from a 2014 study that explored the relationship between self-regulation and computational thinking when learning to code are shared. Research supports the idea of teaching computational thinking skills within an integrated early childhood curriculum to support the development of well-prepared citizens for the 21st century by drawing on the connections between executive function, self-regulation, and computational thinking.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
HamzaMohammad Abdulghani ◽  
Farah Ahmad ◽  
Abdulmajeed Aldrees ◽  
MahmoudS Khalil ◽  
GomindaG Ponnamperuma

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Amo-Salas ◽  
María del Mar Arroyo-Jimenez ◽  
David Bustos-Escribano ◽  
Eva Fairén-Jiménez ◽  
Jesús López-Fidalgo

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are one of the most popular tools to evaluate learning and knowledge in higher education. Nowadays, there are a few indices to measure reliability and validity of these questions, for instance, to check the difficulty of a particular question (item) or the ability to discriminate from less to more knowledge. In this work two new indices have been constructed: (i) the no answer index measures the relationship between the number of errors and the number of no answers; (ii) the homogeneity index measures homogeneity of the wrong responses (distractors). The indices are based on the lack-of-fit statistic, whose distribution is approximated by a chi-square distribution for a large number of errors. An algorithm combining several traditional and new indices has been developed to refine continuously a database of MCQs. The final objective of this work is the classification of MCQs from a large database of items in order to produce an automated-supervised system of generating tests with specific characteristics, such as more or less difficulty or capacity of discriminating knowledge of the topic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramazan Yilmaz ◽  
Hatice Yıldız Durak ◽  
Fatma Gizem Karaoglan Yilmaz

2021 ◽  
pp. 160-171
Author(s):  
Iryna Lenchuk ◽  
Amer Ahmed

This article describes the results of Action Research conducted in an ESP classroom of Dhofar University located in Oman. Following the call of Oman Vision 2040 to emphasize educational practices that promote the development of higher-order cognitive processes, this study raises the following question: Can an online multiple choice question (MCQ) quiz tap into the higher-order cognitive skills of apply, analyze and evaluate? This question was also critical at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic when Omani universities switched to the online learning mode. The researchers administered an online MCQ quiz to 35 undergraduate students enrolled in an ESP course for Engineering and Sciences. The results showed that MCQ quizzes could be developed to tap into higher-order thinking skills when the stem of the MSQ is developed as a task or a scenario. The study also revealed that students performed better on MCQs that tap into low-level cognitive skills. This result can be attributed to the prevalent practice in Oman to develop assessment tools that tap only into a level of Bloom’s taxonomy, which involves the cognitive process of retrieving memorized information. The significance of the study lies in its pedagogical applications. The study calls for the use of teaching and assessment practices that target the development of higher-order thinking skills, which is aligned with the country’s strategic direction reflected in Oman vision 2040.


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