Exploring the Correlations Between the Dimensions of Computational Thinking and Problem-Solving Concepts Through Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

The present study looks into the correlations between two concepts of high interest in educational research, Computational Thinking and Problem Solving. More specifically, it is examined whether there are correlations among the basic dimensions of Computational Thinking and the corresponding ones of Problem Solving, through evaluation of students’ perspectives. The dimensions which were studied were Algorithmic Thinking, Abstraction, Problem Decomposition, Data, Parallelization and Control Flow. The research was conducted with undergraduate students from the Athens Departments of Pedagogy of the School of Pedagogy and Technological Education (ASPETE) of Greece, whose data were collected through a questionnaire administered to the participants. The questionnaire was administered in a pre-test/post-test form and in the in-between period there was a 10-h intervention, based on Machine Learning. The findings of the data analysis indicate that there is a low to moderately positive correlation between the two dimensions, while in the other dimension a low or very low correlations is observed. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.