Reflective abstraction in computational thinking

•Relation between reflective abstraction and computer science education is formed.•Extraction view of abstraction is not powerful for computer science education.•Essence view of abstraction is suggested for computer science education.•APOS theory can be used to analyze students’ understanding in CS...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of mathematical behavior 2017-09, Vol.47, p.70-80
Main Authors: Cetin, Ibrahim, Dubinsky, Ed
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
APOS theory
Computational thinking
Essence
Mental mechanism
Mental structures
Reflective abstraction
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Summary:•Relation between reflective abstraction and computer science education is formed.•Extraction view of abstraction is not powerful for computer science education.•Essence view of abstraction is suggested for computer science education.•APOS theory can be used to analyze students’ understanding in CS education. Computational thinking has become an increasingly popular notion in K-12 and college level education. Although researchers have accepted that abstraction is a central concept in computational thinking, they are quick to disagree on the meaning of it. A focus on reflective abstraction has led to the development of APOS Theory in Mathematics education. This has resulted in many cases of improved student learning in Mathematics (Arnon et al., 2013). Our main aim in this paper is to construct a theoretical bridge between computational thinking and APOS Theory and show that reflective abstraction can be used in the context of computational thinking.
ISSN:0732-3123
1873-8028
DOI:10.1016/j.jmathb.2017.06.004