Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Computer Science Education
Author ORCID Identifier
Luis Morales-Navarro https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8777-2374
Deborah A. Fields https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1627-9512
Yasmin B. Kafai https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4018-0491
Publisher
Routledge
Publication Date
4-11-2023
First Page
1
Last Page
29
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Abstract
Background and Context
Few instruments exist to measure students’ CS engagement and learning especially in areas where coding happens with creative, project-based learning and in regard to students’ self-beliefs about computing.
Objective
We introduce the CS Interests and Beliefs Inventory (CSIBI), an instrument designed for novice secondary students to learn by designing projects (particularly with physical computing).. The inventory contains subscales on beliefs on problem solving competency, fascination in design, value of CS, creative expression, and beliefs about context-specific CS abilities alongside programming mindsets and outcomes. We explain the creation of the instrument and attend to the role of mindsets as mediators of self-beliefs and how CSIBI may be adapted to other K-12 project-based learning settings.
Method
We administered the instrument to 303 novice CS secondary students who largely came from historically marginalized backgrounds (gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). We assessed the nine-factor structure for the 32-item instrument using confirmatory factor analysis and tested the hypothesized model of mindsets as mediators with structural equation modeling.
Findings
We confirmed the nine-factor structure of CSIBI and found significant positive correlations across factors. The structural model results showed that problem solving competency beliefs and CS creative expression promoted programming growth mindset, which subsequently fostered students’ programming self-concept.
Implications
We validated an instrument to measure secondary students’ self-beliefs in CS that fills several gaps in K-12 CS measurement tools by focusing on contexts of learning by designing. CSIBI can be easily adapted to other learning by designing computing education contexts.
Recommended Citation
Luis Morales-Navarro, Michael T. Giang, Deborah A. Fields & Yasmin B. Kafai (2023) Connecting beliefs, mindsets, anxiety and self-efficacy in computer science learning: an instrument for capturing secondary school students’ self-beliefs, Computer Science Education , DOI: 10.1080/08993408.2023.2201548
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Instructional Media Design Commons, Library and Information Science Commons
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Computer Science Education. Luis Morales-Navarro, Michael T. Giang, Deborah A. Fields & Yasmin B. Kafai (2023) Connecting beliefs, mindsets, anxiety and self-efficacy in computer science learning: an instrument for capturing secondary school students’ self-beliefs, Computer Science Education , DOI: 10.1080/08993408.2023.2201548. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.