Supporting preschool teachers' computational thinking skills: The effect of design-based in-service training

This research aims to examine the effect of the in-service training program based on the design-based learning approach on preschool teachers' coding and computational thinking skills. The study group consisted of 40 preschool teachers, including 20 teachers in the experimental group and 20 teachers in the control group. The data of the study were collected quantitatively and qualitatively before and after the implementation of the training program. For this reason, the research was designed as an intervention design, which is one of the mixed research method designs. In the quantitative dimension of the study, a quasi-experimental design in the form of pretest-posttest control group design was used, while the qualitative dimension was carried out in the form of a case study. Within the scope of the research, an in-service training program which comprised of 3 modules and 21 sessions was conducted for the experimental group through a five-day training. In this context, quantitative data were collected using "Teacher Beliefs Scale About Coding and Computational Thinking", "Computer Thinking Scale" and "Self-Efficacy Perception Scale Regarding Teaching Computational Thinking". In the analysis of quantitative data, multivariate analysis of variance for repeated measures (MANOVA) and dependent samples t-test were used, whereas the qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was found that the design-based in-service training program had a positive effect on preschool teachers' coding and computational thinking skills, which is supported by the qualitative findings.