Investigating middle school students’ computational thinking skill levels: The case of tangram

The aim of this study is to reveal middle school students’ levels of computational thinking skills through a tangram activity. The study was conducted using the case study method, one of the qualitative research approaches, and involved five 7th-grade students from a public school. As data collection tools, the researchers used tangram activities designed according to the dimensions of computational thinking skills, a semi-structured interview form, audio recordings, and the researcher’s observation notes. Descriptive and content analysis techniques were employed in the analysis of the data. The findings of the study showed that students were successful in the dimensions of decomposition, algorithmic thinking, and pattern recognition, whereas their skills in abstraction needed to be further developed. In addition, their levels in debugging and evaluation/testing were found to be quite low. This study offers suggestions to mathematics educators regarding the identification of these levels and also presents a conceptual framework to support the analysis process.