Measuring Computational Thinking in Middle School using Game Programming

Objectives. Computational thinking (CT) involves using the tech niques of computer science to systematically and efficiently solve problems and p rocess information, and there is growing interest in incorporating CT into K-12 (e.g., recen t fforts by the Computer Science Teachers Association, the International Society for Technolo gy in Education, and Google). However, the construct of CT does not lend itself well to questi onnaire assessments; it requires more qualitative, in-depth measures. In this paper, we w ill describe one strategy for measuring CT among middle school students enrolled in a game pro gramming class. The fairy assessment is designed to measure students' understanding of the programming environment, as well as their understanding of aspects of CT such as abstraction/ modeling and scale, and whether they can apply algorithmic thinking to solve a problem. The findings are being used to describe what computational thinking looks like in middle school, and to test and refine the measure.