Computational thinking through children's games: an analysis of interaction elements

Abstract

Digital games represent a ludic, attractive and pedagogically interesting possibility for teaching-learning processes. The appearance of several children's games based on creation of algorithmic sequences for controlling characters shows the growing importance given to the development of computational thinking at elementary level. However, the adoption of this kind of game in educational contexts is hindered by the lack of trustworthy design and evaluation methods to access the quality of the games and guide developers and educators. This paper reports the evaluation of a children's digital game for teaching computational thinking, and presents results that contribute to the generation of guidelines related to interface elements, interaction issues and key design choices for performing functions that are common to games of the kind.