Poster #110 - Preschool-aged children’s computational thinking preconceptions and use of storybooks to assess understanding

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Public media producers and research partners conducted three rounds of virtual and in-person storybook testing (from June 2021 - March 2022) on a new computational thinking (CT) series developed for children ages 3-5. Each round involved 1:1 virtual sessions that centered on two unique stories and CT concepts (totaling 6 stories). Individual sessions were facilitated via Zoom and generally occurred in children’s homes. Through testing with a diverse sample (Round #1: n= 25, Round #2: n=16, Round #3: n= 26) of mostly low-income youth, common preconceptions and vocabulary misconceptions surfaced. We will discuss the methods used to assess understanding (e.g., live storybook readings vs. pre-recorded stories and interviews over Zoom) and unpack a subset of our findings. While production advisors and researchers were not surprised by the challenges young children had with expressing their CT thinking in words, these specific findings could help inform researchers, educators, and content creators in developing materials to more effectively introduce CT concepts to preschool-aged children:
**The CT concept of problem decomposition referred to as “breaking things down” was often taken literally and misunderstood as physically destroying something. Although a valuable insight about language, series CT advisors conclude that it is less important for kids to know the terms problem decomposition or “breaking things down” and more important for them to understand the concept of turning a big problem into smaller tasks.
**The CT concept of order, as in sequencing items from 1st to last, was initially understood in the context of “ordering stuff from Amazon” and similar transactions. After playing a game with the concept of order as its focus, a few children latched onto the idea of it meaning sequencing while others repeated what they said at the beginning of the session (i.e. “ordering from Amazon”).
**The CT concept of sorting by different properties (color, size, shape, and type) came more naturally as a directed, performance task, however, participants struggled to verbalize the purpose and process of sorting especially when presented in the context of a story. When exposed to story-based sorting scenarios, some children approached sorting as a “sharing” activity. For instance, sorting to share so everyone gets some of everything vs. sorting to classify things that are the same or different. This result was not unexpected as the story did have a fair sharing focus.
**The CT concepts related to design thinking, especially the idea of “testing things out” resulted in some participants being able to verbalize that it meant “trying it over and over again.” Most children could recall the optimal solution in the story, however, only a few were easily able to explain the reasons why one solution proved better than the rest. Often children would focus on superficial aspects (i.e. what something looked like) versus functional aspects (i.e. how a solution behaved or cause and effect observed through trial and error).

Authors

• Jennifer Rodriguez, Public Broadcasting Service
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Borland, Rockman et al

• Jessica Andrews, 3C Institute