Novice young board-game players' experience about computational thinking

Abstract

The purpose of the qualitative study was to investigate experiences of first-time board-game users (29 elementary school students) in playing "Coding Ocean" (CO) to learn computational thinking. CO was a two-team strategy board game and was designed for children developing basic understanding of computational thinking. Participation observations and interviews were conducted to explained students' novice player experiences, learned CT after their first-time exposures to CO, and usability feedback to the board game. The major findings of this study were two- fold. First, students were motivated and engaged, using board games to learn computational thinking. The winning strategies that students generated throughout the game promoted higher-order computational thinking. Second, students comprehended and interpreted the conceptual elements of computational thinking well after playing the game, having only a fraction of misconceptions. Overall, novice young players' experience were positive, and they provided usability feedback and direction to improving CO. We suggest the game designers in providing supporting elements such as table masters training and course-bundle packages, and developing a series of contextual orientations that will engage novice players.