Author(s)

Hong Ma

Corresponding Author

Hong Ma

Abstract

The Internet era has created new challenges and opportunities for computational thinking (CT) and computer application. Primary schools are where programming courses normally taught, however, Chinese vocational colleges don't give sufficient attention to the CT of their students. 1213 students from Chinese vocational colleges were sampled for a qualitative and quantitative study. The findings show that vocational college students are more engaged in cognition and decomposition for resolving practical issues, but they are not conscious of the significance of generalization, which results in the uneven development of CT skills. Academic discipline significantly affect CT, while gender variations only exist in the generalization dimension. Also, there is a substantial gap between grades. Additionally, this paper addresses the feasible solutions to improve Chinese vocational college students’ CT.

Keywords

Computational thinking, Vocational college students, Gender, Grade, Academic discipline