Abstract This paper reports on a research study of 45 classes in US schools (grades 3–8) using Zoombinis, a popular Computational Thinking (CT) learning game for ages 8 to adult. The study examined the relationship among student gameplay, related classroom activity, and the development of students’ CT practices in Zoombinis classes. A combination of research methods, including educational data-mining on game data logs, cluster analysis on teacher logs of classroom activity, and multilevel modeling, was used to determine the impact of the duration and nature of student gameplay, as well as the extent and nature of classroom activity, on student CT practices. Automated detectors of gameplay CT practices built for this research were significant predictors of external post-assessment scores, and thus show promise as implicit assessments of CT practices within gameplay. Students with high duration of gameplay and high gameplay CT practices scored highest on external post-assessment of CT practices, when accounting for pre-assessment scores. This research suggests that Zoombinis is an effective CT learning tool and CT assessment tool for elementary- and middle-school students.

中文翻译：

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使用学习游戏 Zoombinis 在中小学班级发展学生的计算思维实践

摘要 本文报告了使用 Zoombinis（一种适用于 8 岁至成人的流行计算思维 (CT) 学习游戏）对美国学校（3-8 年级）的 45 个班级进行的研究。该研究调查了学生游戏、相关课堂活动以及学生在 Zoombinis 课程中 CT 实践的发展之间的关系。结合研究方法，包括游戏数据日志的教育数据挖掘、教师课堂活动日志的聚类分析和多层次建模，被用来确定学生游戏的持续时间和性质的影响，以及程度和程度。课堂活动的性质，关于学生 CT 实践。为这项研究构建的游戏 CT 实践的自动检测器是外部后评估分数的重要预测因子，从而显示出作为游戏玩法中 CT 实践的隐含评估的前景。在考虑预评估分数时，游戏持续时间长和游戏 CT 实践高的学生在 CT 实践的外部后评估中得分最高。本研究表明，Zoombinis 是中小学生有效的 CT 学习工具和 CT 评估工具。