Examining the Relationship between Digital Game Preferences and Computational Thinking Skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify whether computational thinking skills among secondary school students differ depending on the type of digital games they play. The participants of this study were 202 secondary school students at 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades during 2016-2017 academic year. Correlational survey method was used during this study. Furthermore, there were three different data collection instruments used. The first one was "Personal Information Form". The second one was "Computational Thinking Skills Scale" and the third data collection instrument was "Questionnaire for Type of Games Played with Digital Tools". Results indicated that students scored higher compared to other sub-scales while their scores from the critical thinking sub-scale was the lowest. The most frequently played game category of the students was found to be dress up/make-up games.