Building a Computational Model of Food Webs: Impacts on Middle School Students' Computational and Systems Thinking Skills

Autor/inn/en	Rachmatullah, Arif; Wiebe, Eric N.
Titel	Building a Computational Model of Food Webs: Impacts on Middle School Students' Computational and Systems Thinking Skills
Quelle	In: Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 59 (2022) 4, S.585-618 (34 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Rachmatullah, Arif)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-4308
DOI	10.1002/tea.21738
Schlagwörter	Middle School Students; Computation; Thinking Skills; Models; Systems Approach; Science Activities; Grade 7 + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Denkfähigkeit; Analogiemodell; Systemischer Ansatz; School year 07; 7. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 07
Abstract	Integral to fostering computational thinking (CT) skills, which are increasingly essential in today's digital era, has been the shift of paper-based pictorial modeling activities to computational modeling. Research has indicated that modeling activities can advance students' understanding of a system's mechanism (i.e., systems thinking), such as an ecosystem. The current study examines the impacts of paper-based pictorial and computational modeling activities on students' systems thinking and CT skills. A total of 751 seventh-grade students were involved in online modeling activities, spanning over 4 days, and were assigned purposefully to a paper-based modeling condition (n = 374) or a computational modeling (n = 377) condition. They took systems-thinking-embedded food web and CT assessments before and after the four activities, in addition to a formative assessment after each activity. Multilevel modeling and repeated-measures correlation tests were used to analyze the students' quantitative data. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) was utilized to map out students' perceptions of what they believed they learned from the activities. The results revealed significant increases in the systems thinking-embedded food web constructs in both conditions. However, the increase of CT skills in the paper-based pictorial condition was not as significant as the increase in the computational modeling condition. ENA results showed that students in the computational modeling condition had more co-occurrences between science and computer science or CT concepts than those in the paper-based pictorial condition. These findings illuminate the benefit of engaging students in computationally rich science activities to advance both systems thinking and CT skills. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01