Abstract:

The new Computer Science (CS) curriculum in the Republic of Croatia for the first time highlights Computational Thinking (CT) concepts like abstraction and decomposition besides algorithmic thinking. Many teacher practitioners welcomed the more powerful introduction of CT concepts to their daily teaching practice. At the same time, they emphasize the need for a deeper approach in the Computational Thinking Education (CTE) research area to create accessible examples of good practice in the field of teaching, and especially in the field of evaluation, examples which are in line with the new curriculum. This paper presents a model of CT assessment based on Evidence Center Design principles, alined with the new Croatian CS curriculum and applicable in regular teaching practice. Based on the presented model, an online assessment tool has been created for CT concepts (abstraction, algorithmic thinking, and decomposition) which emphasized task development in the form of a puzzle story. The research results, conducted among 410 students, indicated the possibility of wider applying of the assessment tool independently of the programming language used in the teaching process. The content validity of the presented measurement instrument was investigated by analyzing its relationship with Bebras challenge tasks that deal with CT concepts also. The proposed CT tool has proven to be somewhat more appropriate for assessing CT concepts according to the new curriculum than the Bebras Challenge. The impact of certain factors such as the gender, student's mathematical and general academic abilities, on student's CT assessment achievement was explored as well as some qualitative data regarding assessment tool application.

Keywords:

Computational thinking, K12, assessment, evidence-centered design, Bebras challenge.