Examining the relationship between teachers' computational thinking skills and problem solving skills

This study was conducted to determine the level of computer thinking and problem solving skills of teachers and to investigate whether the relationship between these two skill levels differs in terms of gender, educational status, professional seniority and age variables. The research was conducted with 254 teachers working in Kocaeli in the second semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. Of the 254 teachers who participated in the study, 154 (60.6%) were female and 100 (39.4%) were male. Descriptive survey and relational survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, were used in the study. In the related study, personal information form, "Computer Thinking Scale" and "Problem Solving Skills Scale for Adults" were used to collect data. According to the average of the responses of the teachers who participated in the study to the Computer Thinking Scale and the Problem Solving Skills Scale for Adults, the teachers consider themselves to be above average in terms of having computer thinking skills and problem solving skills. Teachers' problem solving skills do not differ significantly by gender, educational level, years in the profession, or age. Computational thinking skills do not differ significantly by age and educational status, but the collaboration sub-dimension does differ by gender and seniority, and the algorithmic thinking sub-dimension does differ by seniority. The significant difference in the sub-dimension of "Collaboration" according to gender is in favor of female teachers, and according to professional seniority, it is in favor of teachers with professional seniority of 1-5 years, 11-15 years, and 21 years or more. The significant difference in the sub-dimension "Algorithmic Thinking" is in favor of teachers with a professional seniority of 11-15 years and 16-20 years. Since a positive and moderately significant relationship was found between the total score of the Computational Thinking Scale and the total score of the Problem Solving Skills Scale for Adults, it was concluded that as teachers' computational thinking skills increase, their problem solving skills also increase.