Great success of the test to evaluate computational thinking

Irene Vega

Computational thinking (CT) is a multidimensional term that encompasses a wide variety of problem-solving skills related to the field of computer science. Until a few years ago, the main CT assessment tools were aimed at higher educational stages and there were no standardized methods for assessing skills in preschool-aged children.

For this reason, María Zapata Cáceres and Estefanía Martín Barroso, researchers at the ETSII of the URJC, together with Marcos Román González, researcher at the Faculty of Education of the UNED, developed in 2020 an instrument adapted to the early stages of education: the test Beginners Computational Thinking test (BCTt). Since then, this test has been used by the international scientific and educational community, it has been used in educational centers in different countries and has been validated in others such as, for example, in greek.

Thanks to this success, the scientific team has recently validated a second reduced version (short form) to make the test easier to use with children aged 5 and 6. The results of this work have been published in the journal Journal of Science Education and Technology and Marcos Jiménez and Gregorio Robles, researchers at the URJC, and Jesús Moreno León, researcher at the University of Seville (US), also participated in it.

The research was carried out with a sample of 700 children, which has confirmed the validity and reliability of the test, now called Beginners Computational Thinking test Short-Form (BCTt-SF). This 12-item instrument measures three of the most common computational concepts assessed in preschool research: sequences (sets of instructions or steps that must be performed in turn), loops (rules for executing the same sequence a given number of times), and conditionals (directions to perform an action when a specific circumstance is met).

Conditional question example

Based on the evaluation of the responses obtained, the authors of the study state that “the BCTt-SF can serve as a valuable tool to evaluate the effectiveness of new educational interventions and compare them.” In addition, this test is easy to apply, as it does not require any electronic device, and has high reliability, which is not easy when it comes to tests aimed at young children.

An inclusive project 

The BCTt is being used in the Erasmus+ CoTEDI project (Computational Thinking Education for Diversity and Inclusion) as a reliable tool for assessing computational thinking. This project is funded by the European Union and involves six countries (the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden) as well as a large number of schools. Within the framework of CoTEDI, resources for teachers and assessment instruments are being developed. The aim of creating these tools is for schools to be able to use them to develop computational thinking in the classroom. “We develop instruments for the interest of teachers and schools, which we offer free of charge for educational and research purposes,” says María Zapata Cáceres, principal investigator of the CoTEDI project at the URJC, together with Estefanía Martín Barroso.

The assessment tests available openly and in which the URJC has participated in their development are: the BCTt for the stage between 4 and 7 years (first version of 25 questions of 2020 and second short version of 12 questions) and the cCTt (competent Computational Thinking test) for the stage between 7 and 9 years. The latter is an adaptation of the BCTt and was carried out in collaboration with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale from Lausanne (Switzerland), whose first author is Laila El-Hamamsy.