The Effect of Algorithmic Thinking Education in Nature on Seventh Grade Students' Computational Thinking Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the TÜBİTAK 4004 project- based training program entitled "We Are in a Wallless Learning Environment Based on Algorithmic Thinking" on seventh- grade students' perceptions of their computational thinking (CT) skills. This study employed a one- group pretest– posttest quasi-experimental design. The participants consisted of 29 seventh- grade students from İkizce district of Ordu Province, Türkiye, selected through purposive sampling. During the five-day training program, students participated in a variety of nature- inspired and outdoor learning activities encompassing engineering, robotics and coding, algorithmic thinking, astronomy, social sciences and humanities, art, STEAM, and biodiversity. Within this framework, students engaged in field trips, observations, trekking, and astronomy activities structured around the core stages of computational thinking, including problem identification, solution generation, decomposition of solutions into sequential steps, and evaluation. Data were collected using the Computational Thinking Skills Perception Scale. The findings indicated that the training program had a positive effect on students' perceptions of their computational thinking skills, with particularly strong effects observed in the subdimensions of algorithm design, self-confidence, and data processing. Furthermore, the effect of the intervention did not differ significantly by gender, except for the data processing subdimension, in which female students demonstrated significantly higher gains than male students. The findings are discussed in relation to the relevant literature, and several recommendations for future research and educational practice are provided.