Can Playing a Video Game Foster Computational Thinking Skills?

Computational thinking is increasingly recognized as an important skill set to learn for people living in the 21st century, and the middle school years comprise a critical stage to introduce children to computational thinking. Video game based learning is a promising way to foster computational thinking among middle school students, however, it is relatively less researched compared to other methods. In this dissertation study, I evaluated the effectiveness of a video game Penguin Go on developing middle school students’ computational thinking skills, as well as on improving their attitudes toward computer science. I designed Penguin Go to cover the core components of computational thinking, including problem decomposition, abstraction, algorithmic thinking, conditional logic, iterative thinking, and debugging. I implemented the game based on Blockly, a block-based programming language. The game was evaluated with 43 middle school students during two weeks. In addition to the overall effectiveness of the game, I aimed to investigate the impact of a specific game feature—constraints on the number of blocks in a solution—on both students’ computational thinking skills and their attitudes toward computer science. Results showed that after playing Penguin Go for less than two hours, students’ computational thinking skills improved significantly, however, the additional constraints did not generate a significant impact on learning gains. Also, the game did not bring about significant attitudinal changes among students. The additional constraints, however, resulted in a significant negative change in students attitudes toward computer science. Implications of the findings and possible directions for future research regarding using these types of games to foster computational thinking are discussed.