Teaching Computational Thinking to Preservice Teachers: The Importance of the Order of Presentation of Activities

Resumo

Background: In recent years, computational thinking has been widely included in school curricula, but specific didactics are still lacking. In addition, emotions affect learning and there is a gender gap in technology-related issues. Objectives: We wanted to test the effects of the order in which examples are discussed in class (mathematical versus everyday) and the gender, on the emotion and performance of Primary School preservice teachers’ s when designing flowcharts. Design: We used a quantitative approach with two factors and repeated measures in one of them. Setting and Participants: Data were gathered from 121 preservice primary teachers enrolled in their first year of a teacher education program at a Spanish university. Data collection and analysis: We measured emotions with a questionnaire, and performance by evaluating the flowcharts produced by the students. Afterward, we used logistic regression and analysis of variance, respectively. Results: The group where the mathematical example was discussed first outperformed the other group and were less likely to feel despair, but there were no differences in other emotions. Women were more likely to feel negative emotions in the assessment situation, but there were no gender differences in performance. Conclusions: This study shows that, in the context of teaching and learning computational thinking, the order in which solved examples are discussed in class, mathematical or everyday life ones, affects students' performance and the emotions they experience. As a direct application, these results suggest discussing mathematical examples first when teaching to preservice teachers.