Sergio Luján-Mora|P.M.C. Barra|Santiago Meliá|Otoniel López
Impact of Programming Exposure on the Development of Computational Thinking Capabilities: An Empirical Study
todays digital society turned development students computational thinking capabilities critical factor future successas higher education institutions need take responsibility development every degree course offer provide students kind subjects activities best contribute aimin paper study impact following introductory programming course development computational thinking capabilities university studentsin order achieve aim concurrent cohort observational study carried measured subjective objective computational thinking capabilities 104 participants 50 first year students enrolled bachelors degree course psychology catholic university murcia ucam 54 first year students enrolled bachelors degree course health information systems university alicante uathe statistical procedures applied test hypotheses twoway mixed anova pairedsample ttest independentsample ttestthe data shows group ua initial higher subjective perception computational capabilities group ucamthis perception supported objective scores also significantly higherhowever subjective assessment computational capability ua group diminished exposure programming course contrasting fact objective computational capabilities improved significantlyin ucam group subjective objective capabilities remained constant timebased results conclude computational thinking capabilities developed naturally need trainedproviding training students enrolled undergraduate degrees engineering paramount importance allow face challenges future professionsthis paper empirically demonstrates extent exposing subjects programming course may contribute aim