Improving vocational students' conceptual understanding and computational thinking with digital and unplugged programming activities

This study explored and assessed the extent to which vocational students' conceptual understanding and computational thinking can be developed through digital and unplugged activities that focused on specific Computer Science (CS) concepts aligned with the curriculum. Another aim was to obtain deeper understanding of how vocational high school students interacted with and defined CS concepts in a context-specific English vocabulary-integrated learning setting. Six activities were adapted from Grover (2019)'s VELA (Variables, Expressions, Loops, Abstraction) curriculum, and one activity was designed from scratch to include a seventh concept, algorithms, complete with lesson plans. Thus, a total of 7 digital and unplugged activities were carried out at a vocational high school for 3 weeks, as an introduction to the 9th grade fundamentals of programming course at the beginning of the school year. Using the Turkish version of the Computational Thinking Test (CTt) (Polat et al., 2021) and the Computational Thinking Scale developed by Korkmaz et al. (2017) for self-assessment of CT skills, participants' CT skills were assessed before and after the intervention. Grover's (2020) summative assessment tool was adapted for use in a Turkish vocational high school. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to learn more about students' comprehension of CS concepts. The findings showed a significant change in the scores for CTt, but not for the Computational Thinking scale. Students demonstrated a favorable progression in their grasp and application of CS concepts. The implications are explored in terms of computer science education in vocational high schools and programming education in general.