Abstract:
The study was carried out from 2018 to 2020 with the challenge - how to assess the level of computational thinking. The research
design is mixed since the disclosure of mutual influence of the components of the chain ‘learning programming – computational
thinking – evaluating computational thinking’ requires the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The
conceptualisation of the ‘computational thinking’ idea is based on the premise of the impact of abstract thinking and computers
on human thinking evolution. The structural interpretation of ‘computational thinking’, consisting of nine components, reflects
the presence of a semantic link between teaching programming and the development of abstract computational thinking. Four
levels (phenomenological, analytic–synthetic, set–prognostic and axiomatic) of computational thinking have been identified for
each of these nine components. The study involved 102 elementary school students who are learning programming in Scratch.
The guiding questions and problems we have developed for elementary school students are designed following the characteristics
of the four levels of computational thinking. The results of the study showed that the ratio of ‘structural components’ to different
levels of computational thinking, with the corresponding characteristics, allows one to determine the degree of its development
or its individual components.
