The relation between academic achievement and the spontaneous use of designthinking strategies Abstract   Designthinking strategies are believed to enhance performance and learning, but it is unclear whether these strategies have any relation to the types of learning measured by tests of academic achievement. This study examines the relations between studentsu0027 prior academic achievement, their choices to use designthinking strategies of seeking critical feedback and revising their work, and their learning during a 1015min online activity. Sixthgrade students designed three digital posters. After each poster, they had chances to seek either critical or confirmatory feedback, followed by a chance to revise the poster or not. Results show that prior academic achievement is positively related to studentsu0027 spontaneous use of critical feedbackseeking and that critical feedbackseeking is positively associated with studentsxe2x80x99 performance on the poster design task through revising, regardless of prior academic achievement. Prior academic achievement indirectly predicts performance, first through critical feedbackseeking and then through revising. One possible interpretation is that students who exhibit higher academic achievement attained those levels because they had spontaneously employed these strategies during their academic studies. To test this claim, future work needs to determine if instruction in designthinking strategies increases student academic achievement.

Assessing computational thinking: A systematic review of empirical studies Abstract   With the increasing attention to Computational Thinking (CT) in education, there has been a concomitant rise of needs and interest in investigating how to assess CT skills. This study systematically reviewed how CT has been assessed in the literature. We reviewed 96 journal articles to analyze specific CT assessments from four perspectives: educational context, assessment construct, assessment type, and reliability and validity evidence. Our review results indicate that (a) more CT assessments are needed for high school, college students, and teacher professional development programs, (b) most CT assessments focus on studentsu0027 programming or computing skills, (c) traditional tests and performance assessments are often used to assess CT skills, and surveys are used to measure studentsxe2x80x99 CT dispositions, and (d) more reliability and validity evidence needs to be collected and reported in future studies. This review identifies current research gaps and future directions to conceptualize and assess CT skills, and the findings are expected to be beneficial for researchers, curriculum designers, and instructors.