Improving primary students’ computational thinking through cross-curricular teaching: a design-based implementation research in mathematics and programming education
Jue Wang, Yi Zhang, Xing Li, Ling Feng Xie, Aiping Mao · Asia Pacific Journal of Education · 2025
In recent years, national ministries of education worldwide have implemented computational thinking (CT) skills in their curricula. Due to the challenges of implementing cross-curricular CT themes in primary schools, design-based implementation research (DBIR) can be used as a targeted approach that requires researchers and teachers to construct a participatory process to develop a shared understanding. Therefore, this study adopted the DBIR approach to explore the integration of CT skills into cross-curricular teaching. A university research team and primary school mathematics and computer science teachers explored CT-integrated instructional design of mathematical concepts and programming. The study involved fifth-grade students (aged 11 years) who participated in the basic, developmental and proficiency levels of iterative experiments to learn probability concepts using mathematics and Scratch. The study used formative and summative methods for data collection and assessment. Results indicated that cross-curricular teaching improved primary school students’ CT. Based on the DBIR approach, this study systematically explored the characteristics and theory of integrating CT into cross-curricular teaching. This study contributes to the research on CT integration theory, its application in cross-curricular education and its use in primary schools.