Integrating Formative Assessment of Computational Thinking with Self-Regulated Learning

Cuny Hunter College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This is a two-year exploratory project submitted to the assessment strand of the Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) Program, also responsive to NSF 17-149 Dear Colleague Letter: Discovery Research PreK-12: Advancing STEM+Computing. It is aimed at developing, refining, testing, and validating a prototype to illustrate the synergy among formative assessment (FA), computational thinking (CT), and self-regulated learning (SRL) within the discipline of computer science (CS) with teachers (n=10) and students (n=160) in 9th-12th grades. The project will focus on FA, also known as assessment for learning, which generates information that is used for feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. By explicitly eliciting student SRL learning during problem-solving, assessment tasks will illustrate the synergy between FA and SRL. Students will be prompted to analyze a CT task before attempting to solve it, explicitly setting goals, and reflecting on teacher feedback to direct their behaviors towards achieving these goals in subsequent attempts. To elicit SRL behavior, CT task design will follow a three-phase model. Phase 1 will focus on goal setting and task analysis. Phase 2 will focus on self-monitoring during task performance, while Phase 3 will center on reflection. Each task will have two performance iterations, allowing students and teachers to put feedback about prior performance into use. Tasks' content will be drawn from the CS curricula used in secondary school classrooms. They will be validated in authentic classroom contexts in a public school system with a diverse student population. This effort plans to achieve the following outcomes: (1) creation of four prototype CT assessment tasks; (2) development of reliability and validity arguments for the tasks; (3) research into impacts on student CT performance of process-oriented teacher feedback and explicit use of SRL; and (4) development of teacher expertise in FA of CT. The project will address two key research questions: (1) Does teacher feedback positively affect student performance when it provides goal-specific feedback on SRL processes, as well as performance outcomes?; and (2) Do students who engage in SRL cycles improve performance on CT tasks, as compared to students who complete tasks without explicit prompts to engage in SRL? To answer these questions, the project will conduct two research studies. The first study will investigate the extent to which teacher feedback on both SRL processes and task performance positively affects student CT achievement, more than outcome-based feedback only. This study will use a quasi-experimental, pre- post-test design with comparison group. Students in the treatment condition will receive feedback on SRL processes and CT task performance. Students in the control condition will receive feedback on performance outcomes only. The second study will investigate the extent to which students who engage in SRL through explicit prompting improve performance on CT tasks, as compared to students without SRL prompts. This study will employ an experimental mixed-model design to examine differences between experimental groups and changes in students' performance over three repeated measurement cycles. The main outcome of this effort will be a prototype illustrating the potential synergies among CT, FA, and SRL which will be used in the future to further research on the intersections among these domains. The tasks developed under this project will be made available online at no cost to the public through multiple practitioner networks. An advisory board and external evaluator will provide feedback and recommendations in regard to the progress and quality of the work. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.