Abstract:

We live in a society full of digital and programmable objects. In this context, being code-literate involves an inescapable requirement for any citizen of the XXI century. We believe that a person is code-literate when the ability to read and write in the language of computers and to think computationally has been developed. So it is not surprising that computational thinking (CT) is being located at the focus of educational innovation as a set of problem solving skills to be acquired by new generations of students. However, we still lack international consensus on a definition of CT, nor a clear idea of how to incorporate CT to our education systems at various levels. Similarly, there is a striking gap about how to measure and assess CT. In reply, this paper presents the design of a Computational Thinking Test aimed at Spanish students between 12 and 13 years old (grades K-7 & K-8): we describe the guidelines on which whole test and each of its items have been designed, as well as the content validation process through expert's judgment procedure. Through this process, the initial version of the test (40 items length) was depurated to a 28 items version, which is currently being applied to the target population. Finally, possible limitations of the test and possible concurrency of the same with other international evidence on computational thinking assessment are discussed.

Keywords:

Computational thinking, computational thinking test, code literacy, computer science education.