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

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 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.

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.

Available for download on Friday, October 11, 2024

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