Incorporating the elements of computational thinking into the Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC) model

Abstract

Computational Thinking (CT) is a term of great interest which elicits a good response from researchers. Most researchers have become aware and pay much attention to CT because most industries have begun to focus on computational thinking skills, in addition to future work skills. One of the critical skills required among graduates is CT. Additionally, smartphones and mobile devices have become ubiquitous and more people now access the web via mobile devices than from personal computers. As the number of devices expands dramatically, users are becoming accustomed to having both web and computing access via small, mobile devices and phones. Development, as well as mobile device use, has become increasingly popular amongst students. In mobile application development, one of the models that can be used is the Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC). Therefore, in this paper we integrate the elements of CT into the MADLC model hoping to provide broad benefits not only in its development but in the use of CT skills. For the appropriate CT element determination that integrates into the MADLC model, we conducted interviews, observations and document analysis. All of the experts we interviewed regarding computational thinking stated that elements of computational thinking are able to be integrated into mobile application module development. From the interviews of all experts, we identified the appropriate CT elements that could be integrated into the MADLC model, namely abstraction, algorithm, decomposition, pattern recognition and evaluation.