Computational Thinking Processes and Their Congruence with Problem-Solving and Information Processing
Abstract
"Computational thinking is emerging as twenty-first century's key competence, especially for today's students as the new generation of digital learners. The acquisition of this competence requires in-depth knowledge in learning and computational thinking processes (Labusch & Eickelmann, 2017), both of which feature in various frameworks (e.g., Kong et al., 2017). Problem-solving theories can also be taken into account to obtain a more precise analysis of these processes since previous research has suggested a large degree of congruence between problem-solving and computational thinking (e.g., Yadav, Stephenson, & Hong, 2017b; Wing, 2008). In this contribution, to analyze computational thinking processes, computational thinking will be first considered in a general problem-solving context and then in an information processing context. Research of this kind is of immense importance to pave the way for further computational thinking in schools. In this regard, the approach provides the theoretical grounding for a national extension (Labusch & Eickelmann, 2017) to the International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2018 (ICILS 2018) (Eickelmann, 2017; Fraillon, Schulz, Friedman, & Duckworth, 2019) which enables for the first time the cross-national measurement of student achievement in computational thinking. This contribution, therefore, serves as a theoretical basis for understanding computational thinking processes regarding problem-solving and cognitive information processing."
