The mediating role of middle school students' attitudes to coding between their digital literacy and computational thinking skill self-efficacy

The aim of this research is to examine the mediating role of middle school students' attitudes towards coding between their digital literacy and computational thinking skill self-efficacy. The research aims to reveal the network of relationships between middle school students' digital literacy, computational thinking skill self-efficacy and their attitudes towards coding. The research was carried out with the relational screening model, one of the screening models. Structural equation modeling was used to reveal the relationships between variables. The participants of this study are 1005 students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades in public secondary schools in the Central district of Kırşehir province in the 2023-2024 academic year. Participants were selected using the convenience sampling method. After the necessary preliminary information and instructions were given to the participants, a personal information form, a digital literacy scale, a computational thinking skills self-efficacy scale, and an attitude towards coding scale were applied. SPSS 27 and AMOS 23 package programs were used in the analysis of the data. By examining the skewness and kurtosis values of the data, it was determined that they showed a normal distribution. According to the research results, digital literacy levels are above average in general and in sub-dimensions. Self-efficacy levels for computational thinking skills are above average in general and in sub-dimensions. Attitude levels towards coding are above average. When the digital literacy levels of students are compared, males have significantly higher digital literacy levels than females. Regarding the grade level, the digital literacy of 5th graders is significantly lower than 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Those who have a computer at home have significantly higher digital literacy than those who do not. Those who use computers for more than 3 hours a day have significantly higher digital literacy than those who use computers less. While the self-efficacy perceptions of computational thinking skills are significantly higher in those who have a computer at home than in those who do not, there is no significant difference according to gender, grade level and daily computer use duration. Attitudes towards coding do not differ significantly according to gender, grade level, having a computer at home, and daily computer use time. It has been determined that attitude towards coding has a partial mediating role between digital literacy and computational thinking skill self-efficacy. The findings of the study are that digital literacy positively predicts computational thinking self-efficacy, digital literacy positively predicts attitude towards coding, and attitude towards coding positively predicts computational thinking self-efficacy. Based on these results, students' computational thinking skills can be increased by including activities in the curriculum to support both digital literacy and positive attitudes towards coding.