Snapshot of Computational Thinking in Turkey: A Critique of 2019 Bebras Challenge

Abstract

This study aims to provide a deeper understanding about the Bebras tasks, which is one of the computational thinking (CT) unplugged activities, in terms of age level, task category, and CT skills. Explanatory sequential mixed method was adopted in the study in order to collect data according to the research questions. The participants of the study were 113,653 school students from different age levels. Anonymous data was collected electronically from the Turkey 2019 Bebras challenge. Factor analysis was employed to reveal the construct validity to determine how accurately the tool measured the abstract psychological characteristics of the participants. In ad-dition, the item discrimination index was calculated to measure how discriminating the items in the challenge were. Qualitative data gathered through the national Bebras workshop was analysed according to content analysis. The findings highlighted some interesting points about the implica-tions of the Bebras Challenge for Turkey, which are discussed in detail. Furthermore, common problems of Bebras tasks are identified and possible suggestions for improvement are listed.