Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

Christopher Butler

College of Computing & Informatics Computer Science

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Frank Lee

Digital Media

Corey Arnold Co-Mentor

Learning Computational Thinking Through Videogames

As the demand for skilled programmers increases each year, more researchers are seeking effective ways to teach programming skills. One idea growing in popularity is teaching basic skills in computational thinking before students write their first line of code. Computational thinking is sometimes defined as the ability to express a problem and its solutions in a way that a computer can understand and automate. Educational games have been gaining popularity in classrooms because they can intrinsically motivate and engage students. Prevailing research shows that educational games made to teach computational thinking are effective, but creating a specialized game for the curriculum can be expensive and time-consuming. Certain commercial off-the-shelf games have the potential to be a cheaper alternative that are just as effective, if correctly integrated into the curriculum. To determine if it is possible for commercial games to be as effective at teaching computational thinking as serious educational games, I analyzed three games: RoboBuilder, an educational game made to teach computational thinking, Hacktion, an augmented reality educational game, and Opus Magnum, an open-ended puzzle game by Zachtronics.