research-article

The effect of CS unplugged on middle-school students' views of CS

Authors:

Mordechai Ben-Ari,

Michal ArmoniAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '09: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 99 - 103

https://doi.org/10.1145/1562877.1562912

Published: 06 July 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Many students hold incorrect views of what computer science (CS) is, and they have negative attitudes towards the field. In order to address these difficulties, a series of learning activities called Computer Science Unplugged was developed by Bell et al. [3]. These activities expose young people to central concepts in CS in an entertaining way, without requiring a computer. Using questionnaires and interviews, we examined the effect of the activities on middle-school students' views of CS, specifically, on their views of: (a) the nature of CS; (b) the characteristics of computer scientists and work in CS; (c) the variety of employment in CS. The results indicate that 'although the students generally understood what CS is' they perceived the computer as the essence of CS and not primarily as a tool, contrary to the intention of the CS Unplugged activities. We suggest additions to the activities intended to increase the change in the views of CS that students have.

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Cited By

Grebogy ECastilho MSantos I(2024)Computação Desplugada: Um Recurso Para o Estímulo de Habilidades Relacionadas ao Pensamento Computacional nos Anos Iniciais do Ensino FundamentalRevista Brasileira de Informática na Educação10.5753/rbie.2024.362432(359-389)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.5753/rbie.2024.3624
ÜSTÜN GÜL HGÜYER T(2023)Türkiye’de Bilgisayarsız Bilgisayar Bilimi Alanında Yapılan Çalışmaların İncelenmesiExamination of studies in the field of computer science unplugged in TurkeyBayterek Uluslararası Akademik Araştırmalar Dergisi10.48174/buaad.12972556:2(363-384)Online publication date: 27-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.48174/buaad.1297255
Parham-Mocello JBerliner GGupta A(2023)Manipulatives for Teaching Computer Science Concepts2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343500(1-9)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343500
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The effect of CS unplugged on middle-school students' views of CS
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '09: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

July 2009

428 pages

ISBN:9781605583815

DOI:10.1145/1562877

General Chair:
Patrick Brézillon
UPMC, France
,
Program Chairs:
Ingrid Russell
University of Hartford, USA
,
Jean-Marc Labat
UPMC, France

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 41, Issue 3
ITiCSE '09
September 2009
403 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1595496
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2009 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 06 July 2009

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ITiCSE '09: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

July 6 - 9, 2009

Paris, France

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ITiCSE '09 Paper Acceptance Rate 66 of 205 submissions, 32%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Grebogy ECastilho MSantos I(2024)Computação Desplugada: Um Recurso Para o Estímulo de Habilidades Relacionadas ao Pensamento Computacional nos Anos Iniciais do Ensino FundamentalRevista Brasileira de Informática na Educação10.5753/rbie.2024.362432(359-389)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.5753/rbie.2024.3624
ÜSTÜN GÜL HGÜYER T(2023)Türkiye’de Bilgisayarsız Bilgisayar Bilimi Alanında Yapılan Çalışmaların İncelenmesiExamination of studies in the field of computer science unplugged in TurkeyBayterek Uluslararası Akademik Araştırmalar Dergisi10.48174/buaad.12972556:2(363-384)Online publication date: 27-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.48174/buaad.1297255
Parham-Mocello JBerliner GGupta A(2023)Manipulatives for Teaching Computer Science Concepts2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343500(1-9)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343500
Parham-Mocello JErwig MNiess MNelson AWeber JBerliner G(2022)Using a Functional Board Game Language to Teach Middle School Programming2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962569(1-9)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962569
Sun DOuyang FLi YZhu C(2021)Comparing learners’ knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes between two instructional modes of computer programming in secondary educationInternational Journal of STEM Education10.1186/s40594-021-00311-18:1Online publication date: 23-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00311-1
Poulakis EPolitis P(2020)Teaching Computational Thinking UnpluggedHandbook of Research on Tools for Teaching Computational Thinking in P-12 Education10.4018/978-1-7998-4576-8.ch009(200-236)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-4576-8.ch009
Brackmann CBarone DBoucinha RReichert J(2019)Development of Computational Thinking in Brazilian Schools with Social and Economic VulnerabilityInternational Journal for Innovation Education and Research10.31686/ijier.vol7.iss4.13907:4(79-96)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2019
https://doi.org/10.31686/ijier.vol7.iss4.1390
Pluhár ZTorma H(2019)Introduction to Computational Thinking for University StudentsInformatics in Schools. New Ideas in School Informatics10.1007/978-3-030-33759-9_16(200-209)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-33759-9_16
Rodriguez BRader CCamp TClear ACuadros-Vargas ECarter JTupac Y(2016)Using Student Performance to Assess CS Unplugged Activities in a Classroom EnvironmentProceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/2899415.2899465(95-100)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2899415.2899465
Grover SPea RCooper S(2015)Designing for deeper learning in a blended computer science course for middle school studentsComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2015.103314225:2(199-237)Online publication date: 15-May-2015
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2015.1033142
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