Unplugged Computational Thinking Activities Framework Development for Novice Programmer

In the past, many investigations focused on the impact of programming skills towards learning computational thinking (CT). However, not all schools or instructor are able to implement or deliver programming curriculum at the K-12 level. For novice programming, CT activities may help students to learn and appreciate problem-solving and programming capabilities. In this paper, an investigation to study the effectiveness and suitability of an unplugged CT activities has been carried out. This is part of the unplugged CT framework development process, where the first element investigated is the type of suitable activities. Two iterations were conducted to confirm the suitability of the activities. The activities were also verified with a selected group of secondary school teachers. The results have shown that unplugged activities can be effective in helping students to learn programming capability. The next step of the research is to identify other relevant components relevant to the framework for an unplugged CT activities for novice programmer.