Date of Award:
5-2026
Document Type:
Dissertation
Degree Name:
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department:
Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences
Committee Chair(s)
Jody Clarke-Midura
Committee
Jody Clarke-Midura
Committee
Wilhelmina van Dijk
Committee
Andrew Walker
Committee
Jessica Shumway
Committee
Hillary Swanson
Abstract
The goals of this multiple-paper dissertation are to evaluate the psychometric evidence of the Computational and Spatial Thinking Assessment (CaST), designed and developed by the Coding in Kindergarten (CiK) research team (supported by NSF #1842116). In Chapter 2 (Paper 1), I evaluate the psychometric quality of the CaST assessment at the item level. The CaST has moderate item difficulty and high item discrimination, on average, with high reliability and no gender- or age-related item bias. In Chapter 3 (Paper 2), I identify seven item design features from the CaST assessment and examine their impact on item difficulty. All item design features explain a large proportion of the variance in item difficulty and successfully manipulate it. In Chapter 4 (Paper 3), I explore the feasibility of diagnostic assessment for the CaST and generate diagnostic assessment information. Among the five key CT knowledge and skills, children have mastered those related to prior knowledge for CT, whereas they have not yet mastered those related to specific CT. Further, six key mastery profiles were identified, and mastery of spatial thinking is a key factor in determining them. Overall, the findings across the three papers show that CaST is a promising assessment for educators and researchers to measure CT and support CT learning in early childhood.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Na, Chungsoo, "Assessing Young Children's Computational Thinking: Validation of Items and Item Design Features, And Diagnostic Approaches" (2026). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present. 709.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd2023/709
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