Computational Thinking Activities in High Schools to Enhance Interest and Skills in Programming

While programming has been recognized as an engaging way to enhance students' learning, implementing programming in K-12 education remains challenging, particularly when it requires access to digital devices or the internet. Therefore, it's essential to consider more accessible methods for teaching crucial programming skills. Given this situation, we turned to unplugged computational thinking (CT) activities to foster interest and develop skills in programming. By introducing programming concepts through unplugged CT activities, this research significantly contributed to the growth of interest and the development of skills among secondary school students. Two hundred and thirty lower secondary school students volunteered to participate in the intervention using a designed unplugged CT activity framework. The CT activities framework consists of four components: puzzles, the Bebras Computing Challenge, problem-solving, and programming concepts. Four schools participated in three- to four-day interventions for four to five hours daily. Quantitative data collection was performed using pre- and post-surveys before and after the intervention phase. A paired sample t-test and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests indicated the p-value < 0.05 suggested a significant improvement in interest and programming skills. An overall findings implied that the unplugged CT activities enhanced students' understanding of CT as well as improved their interest and programming skills.