Design and evaluation of a mobile application for achieving computational thinking skills through geometric transformation learning in middle school

Abstract

Several studies indicate that students frequently make errors when determining the resulting reflection of geometric transformations. On the other hand, several studies mention that mobile applications have been proven effective in reducing conceptual errors in learning geometric transformations. Additionally, some experts argue that computational thinking is a skill students need to master, and it is on par with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Therefore, this study aims to design and evaluate a mobile application specifically developed to support the achievement of computational thinking skills by learning geometric transformations in middle school. The method used was Research and Development (R&D), which begins with a development stage involving needs analysis, learning material and curriculum analysis, and application design. The evaluation phase involved testing the application's validity, practicality, and effectiveness on 51 ninth-grade students from two different schools in Indonesia. The research findings indicate that: (1) the developed mobile application was proven valid based on aspects of material, language, and media feasibility; (2) the developed mobile application was proven effective in achieving middle school students' computational thinking skills with student average scores exceeding the minimum passing grade; (3) the developed mobile application was proven practical based on student response questionnaire results. These research results contribute to developing mobile applications in mathematics learning to achieve higher-order thinking skills among students.