An Empirical Study On The Influence Of “Blending” Programming Teaching Method On Junior High School Students’ Computational Thinking And Programming Attitudes

With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology,one of the latest trends in the field of education technology is to cultivate students’ computational thinking through programming.How to innovate programming classrooms to more effectively promote the improvement of computational thinking has become a key issue for educators,and the change of students’ attitudes in the process of programming learning is also an important factor that cannot be ignored in programming education.However,there is still a lack of research on the impact of different types of programming teaching methods on middle school students’ computational thinking and programming attitudes,and the relationship between students’ programming attitudes and their computational thinking is still insufficient.Therefore,this study explored the effect of different types of programming teaching methods on students’ computational thinking and programming attitudes through a quasi-experimental study,and further analyzed the relationship between programming attitudes and computational thinking,and explored differences in programming experience and gender.First of all,this research developed a tool for evaluating programming attitudes of junior high school students.The newly developed programming attitude scale was verified by a sample of 1487 seventh-grade students.The results showed that the scale has good reliability and validity(χ2/df=2.308,RMSEA=0.073,CFI=0.925,TLI=0.912),which can be used to measure the programming attitude of junior high school students.The quasi-experimental study was conducted in a public junior high school.The sample included 158 seventh-grade students,divided into four experimental groups and one control group.The four experimental groups received single teaching form(plugged-in or unplugged)or blending teaching form(unplugged first plugged-in post or pluggedin first unplugged post)programming activity intervention,the control group did not participate in any form of programming activities intervention.The data sources include four tests of computational thinking and three tests of programming attitudes,as well as texts of purposeful interviews with a sample of a lecturer and 24 student representatives.This study mainly uses statistical methods such as paired sample T test,independent sample T test,one-way analysis of variance,and the establishment of a growth model to analyze quantitative data,and conduct coding analysis of interview results.The research results show that the four programming teaching methods,whether single or blending,can effectively improve students’ computational thinking and programming attitude,and the growth of students’ computational thinking can be retained after two months.In comparison,the implementation of the blending programming teaching method of unplugged first and plugged-in post has most effectively improved students’ computational thinking and programming attitude.The difference test results show that although the sample students’ pre-test programming attitudes and computational thinking have significant differences in programming experience and gender,this difference is manifested in different programming teaching methods.Finally,the results of teacher-student interviews provide development strategies for programming education and computational thinking training.The related findings of this research enrich the related theories of programming education and at the same time have some enlightenment for the introduction of computational thinking practice in junior high school classrooms,which can provide a reference for subsequent computational thinking practice.