Pedagogical Strategies for the Development of Computational Thinking in School Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2025.v10.n12.006Keywords:
Computational Thinking, Games and puzzles, Problem-based learning, School educationAbstract
Computational Thinking is one of the fundamental skills, for present dynamic society and our recent educational documents advocates the integration of CT into the school curriculum, keeping in view the vision of society and education. It is essential to identify the ways to integrate computational thinking in school curriculum. This study employs a narrative review method and attempts to identify different strategies that can useful in school education to develop computational thinking. The identified strategies include project-based learning, problem-based learning, game-based learning, guided discovery method, scientific inquiry method, design-based learning and activity-based method. The analysis of different studies also revealed that the integration of two or more methods can also be done for providing multi-dimensional experiences to diverse learners. These strategies should be implemented with proper contextualization and technology integration. The strategies should also provide opportunities for students for designing and refining learning resources, along with using them for learning. This study can guide curricular and pedagogical innovations in school education and teacher education to design an inclusive and democratic learning environment along with flexible assessment methods with constructive feedback mechanism. This study also has the potential to inform policy formulation and contribute to advancing future inter-, intra-, and multidisciplinary research initiatives.
References
Atmatzidou S, Demetriadis S (2016) Advancing students’ computational thinking skills through educational robotics. Robot Auton Syst 75(PB):661–670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2015.10.008
Chang, C. K., Tsai, Y. T., Chin, Y. L. (2017, July). A Visualization Tool to Support Analyzing and Evaluating Scratch Projects. In 2017 6th IIAI International Congress on Advanced Applied Informatics (IIAI-AAI) (pp. 498–502). IEEE
Chen, Peng & Yang, Dong & Metwally, Ahmed & Lavonen, Jari & Wang, Xiao. (2023). Fostering computational thinking through unplugged activities- A systematic literature review and meta-analysis. International Journal of STEM Education. 10. 10.1186/s40594-023-00434-7.
Green, B. N., Johnson, C. D., & Adams, A. (2006). Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: secrets of the trade. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 5(3), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0899-3467(07)60142-6
Gufron, Ahmad. (2024). Developing Computational Thinking through Mathematics Learning in Indonesia: Scientific Mapping and Bibliometric Analysis. Communications on Applied Nonlinear Analysis. 32. 328-344. 10.52783/cana.v32.1964.
Holincheck, Nancy. (2019). Developing Computational Thinking in Scientific Inquiry: Use of sInvestigator in Problem Solving. 10.3102/1444540.
Huynh, Cam & Nguyen, Hong & Tran, Phuoc. (2025). Efficiency of Visually-Guided Discovery-Learning System for High School. E3S Web of Conferences. 626. 10.1051/e3sconf/202562604002.
Jacob, Sharin & Nguyen, Ha & Garcia, Leiny & Richardson, Debra & Warschauer, Mark. (2020). Teaching Computational Thinking to Multilingual Students through Inquiry-based Learning. 10.13140/RG.2.2.12680.85763.
Kaya, Deniz & Aydoğdu, Yıldız. (2025). Computational Thinking Integration by Design-Based Learning Perspective Implementation Example of Math Education. 10.1007/978-981-96-0853-9_9.
Kazimoglu C, Kiernan M, Bacon L, MacKinnon L (2012) Learning programming at the computational thinking level via digital game-play. Procedia Computer Sci 9:522–531.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2012.04.056. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1877050912001779
Li, Xing & Xie, Kui & Vongkulluksn, Vanessa & Stein, David & Zhang, Yi. (2021). Developing and Testing a Design-Based Learning Approach to Enhance Elementary Students’ Self-Perceived Computational Thinking. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. 55. 1-24. 10.1080/15391523.2021.1962453.
Ministry of Education, Government of India. (2020). National Education Policy 2020
NCERT. (2023) National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/infocus_slider/NCF-School-Education-Pre-Draft.pdf
Nurasiah, N., Paristiowati, M., Erdawati, E., & Afrizal, A. (2023). Integration Of Technology in Problem-Based Learning to Improve Students Computational Thinking: Implementation on Polymer Topics. International Journal of Social and Management Studies, 4(2), 65–73. https://doi.org/10.5555/ijosmas.v4i2.280
Palts, Tauno & Pedaste, Margus. (2020). A Model for Developing Computational Thinking Skills. Informatics in Education. 19. 113-128. 10.15388/infedu.2020.06.
Pingzhang Gou and Xuanyu Ren. 2025. Developing Students’ Computational Thinking through Project-Based Learning Empowered by Generative AI: A Practical Study. In 2025 International Conference on Education, Knowledge and Information Management (ICEKIM 2025), June 20–22, 2025, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3756580.3756611
Romadani, M. N. H., Ariyanti, G., & Winarsih. (2024). Improving The Computational Thinking Abilities of Junior High School Students Through Problem-Based Learning. Paedagogia: Jurnal Pendidikan, 13(2), 269-292. https://doi.org/10.24239/pdg.Vol13.Iss2.582.
Shin, Namsoo & Bowers, Jonathan & Krajcik, Joseph & Damelin, Daniel. (2021). Promoting computational thinking through project-based learning. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research. 3. 10.1186/s43031-021-00033-y.
S. Jacob, H. Nguyen, L. Garcia, D. Richardson and M. Warschauer, "Teaching Computational Thinking to Multilingual Students through Inquiry-based Learning," 2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), Portland, OR, USA, 2020, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272487.
Soleimani, A., Green, K. E., Herro, D., Walker, I. D. (2016, June). A Tangible, Story-Construction Process Employing Spatial, Computational-Thinking. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 157–166). ACM.
Solihin, Annas & Habibie, Ramadhan & Rahmawati, Ika. (2024). Computational Thinking with the Guided-Discovery-Learning Model Using Ethnomathematics-Based LKPD.EDM in Elementary School. DIDAKTIKA: Jurnal Pendidikan Sekolah Dasar. 7. 80-93. 10.21831/didaktika.v7i1.75845.
Turchi T, Malizia A (2016) Fostering computational thinking skills with a tangible blocks programming environment. In: 2016 IEEE symposium on visual languages and human-centric computing (VL/HCC). IEEE, pp 232–233. https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2016.7739692, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/ 7739692/
Vallance, M., and Towndrow, P. A. (2016). Pedagogic transformation, student-directed design and computational thinking. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 11(3), 218–234
Wang D, Zhang C, Wang H (2011) T-maze: a tangible programming tool for children. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on interaction design and children, IDC ’11. ACM, New York, pp 127–135, https://doi.org/10.1145/1999030.1999045
Zhang, W., Guan, Y. & Hu, Z. The efficacy of project-based learning in enhancing computational thinking among students: A meta-analysis of 31 experiments and quasi-experiments. Educ Inf Technol 29, 14513–14545 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12392-2
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).