Algorithmic thinking vs. text comprehension

Our research aims to provide information on whether students who have finished a school have mastered the ability of algorithmic thinking or the focus in their training was more on simply memorizing and using the algorithms. The question is how typical it is for each specialization in our educational system that the composition of the subjects specified in the national curricula should influence the development of problem-solving skills and limit the field of human subjects where it is less important to apply cognitive models or algorithmic thinking acquired through the study of formal sciences. The participants in the experiment were taken from the first year students of Sapientia University, Faculty of Technical and Human Sciences of Tirgu Mures (N = 231). Our research confirmed the expected results, that programming experience and good programming skills are associated with in-depth, context-independent algorithmic thinking An even more important result, however, is that the advanced algorithmic thinking operations presume high level reading comprehension skill: possession of integration and interpretation, as well as reflection and evaluation skills. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.