Computational thinking – back to the future
Andrew Paul Csizmadia, H Boulton · Nottingham Trent University's Institutional Repository (Nottingham Trent Repository) · 2017
Computational Thinking is regarded as a gift from Computer Science to other discipline areas, a digital literacy skill and a cornerstone of the computing programme of study has been delivered as part of the National Curriculum in English Schools since September 2014 [1]. Since Wing’s [2] seminal article sets outs with a clear and concise call to embed Computational Thinking in all subject areas, the impact of, and influence of, Computational Thinking can be seen worldwide. This is evident in the ubiquitous and pervasive nature of computing, the engagement and interaction with big data in a range of disciplines and the development of the computer science curriculum in countries globally. However, there is continuing discussion and debate [3] regarding the need for a robust distinct definition of the term “Computational Thinking”, as at present there is no collective consensus definition for this term. In this paper, the authors seek to contribute to this ongoing dialogue by presenting the findings of a desk-based academic literature review relating to computational thinking which utilised both Influential Literature Analysis [4] and Citation Analysis [5] to identify relevant key texts. These key texts were then analysed to identify the most frequent occurring items (i.e. terms, descriptions and meanings) and coded using appropriate synonyms. This review does not use Wing’s article [2] as its epicentre but identifies the historical roots which have developed and shaped computational thinking. Criteria are proposed for the objectives of a definition of computational thinking, in accordance with the findings presented in the literature review. The criteria were then used as a theoretical framework together with the identified criteria as the vocabulary to propose a definition for computational thinking. The proposed definition was then evaluated against definitions proposed by other computer science educational researchers [6, 7, 3] to determine its effectiveness. The authors look back to identify the historical roots of computational thinking, and look to the future in which educators use a consensus definition of computational thinking.