Computational Thinking in STEM Education among Matriculation Science Students
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Abstract
In the advent of the rapid technological advancement of The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), computational thinking is recognised as an essential skill in the 21st century across all disciplines, especially in STEM, as it trains students to have the cognitive flexibility to deal with complex problem-solving. Computational thinking (CT) is naturally embedded in STEM practices in the reflection of creativity, algorithmic thinking, critical thinking, problem solving and cooperation skills. This study aimed to measure the level of computational thinking in science matriculation students and examine the effect of academic achievement in STEM on CT. The convenient sampling strategy was used to identify one matriculation college in the northern region of Malaysia to participate in the study. Computational thinking scale (CTS) instrument was employed on 153 science students. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the level of CT. One-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to analyse the main effect of academic achievement in STEM on CT, followed by univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the effect on each of the dimensions of CT. The result indicates that students have a medium high level of CT with an overall mean of 3.51. In addition, the findings showed that there was a statistically significant effect of academic achievement in STEM on CT. The mean score for academic achievement revealed that good students scored the highest, followed by average students and weak students in all dimensions of CT except for cooperation. This study will provide insight into the impact of STEM learning outcomes on the development of CT to inform instructional design.
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