DEVELOPING COMPUTATIONAL REASONING SKILL AND MENTAL SIMULATION ABILITY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS USING MICROSOFT KODU By ASHISH AGGARWAL A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2017 © 2017 Ashish Aggarwal To the Great Land of Bharat, whose civilizational values of Dharma will continue to motivate generations & To my Guru, Grandparents and Parents, who have encouraged, supported and guided me every time ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to sincerely thank my thesis advisor Dr. Christina Gardner- McCune of the C.I.S.E Department at the University of Florida for her continuous support of my master’s study and research, for her patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. Her guidance at every step has helped me become a better student and a curious researcher. I will be highly indebted to her for everything I have learnt from her. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank Dr. David S. Touretzky of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. His support and guidance in analysis and understanding concrete ideas has helped me grow immensely in my academic journey. I am also extremely thankful to my committee members, Dr. Kristy E. Boyer and Dr. Shaundra B. Daily for their patience and valuable feedback. My sincere thanks go to all the individuals who helped me conduct research studies. I want to thank Dr. Fred Ball and Mrs. Claire Robinson for supporting me to conduct studies. I want to thank Kyuseo Park and Jiyoung Kang and my lab mates especially Joseph Isaac and Ashley Cahill for their assistance in teaching and designing research. Finally, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my grandparents, parents and my sister for providing me with unconditional support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you! 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 9 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 10 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 13 2 BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................... 15 2.1 Novice Programmers ........................................................................................ 15 2.2 Visual Programming Languages and Student Learning .................................... 18 2.2.1 Scratch .................................................................................................... 18 2.2.2 AgentSheets ............................................................................................ 20 2.2.3 Alice ......................................................................................................... 21 2.2.4 Summary ................................................................................................. 21 2.3 Computational Thinking .................................................................................... 22 2.4 Computational Reasoning ................................................................................. 24 2.4.1 Reading and Writing Programs ............................................................... 25 2.4.2 Program Tracing ...................................................................................... 25 2.4.3 Mental Simulation .................................................................................... 27 2.4.4 Debugging ............................................................................................... 27 2.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 28 3 KODU AND ITS CURRICULUM ............................................................................. 29 3.1 Microsoft’s Kodu Game Lab .............................................................................. 29 3.2 Kodu’s Curriculum............................................................................................. 30 3.3 Laws of Kodu .................................................................................................... 32 3.3.1 First Law of Kodu- “Each rule picks the closest matching object” ............ 33 3.3.2 Second Law of Kodu- “Any rule that can run, will run” ............................. 34 3.3.3 Third Law of Kodu- “When actions conflict, the earlier wins” ................... 36 3.3.4 Fourth Law of Kodu- “An indented rule can run only of its parent can run” ................................................................................................................ 37 3.4 Changes in Kodu Curriculum ............................................................................ 37 3.5 Computational Reasoning in Kodu ................................................................... 39 4 KODU PRIOR RESEARCH & OPEN RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................... 41 4.1 Kodu Misconceptions and Fallacies .................................................................. 42 5 4.1.1 Kodu Misconceptions: ............................................................................. 42 4.1.1.1 Negative transfer misconception: ................................................... 42 4.1.1.2 Static kodu misconception: ............................................................ 43 4.1.1.3 One time rule execution misconception: ........................................ 43 4.1.2 Kodu Fallacies: ........................................................................................ 44 4.1.2.1 Sequential procedure fallacy: ......................................................... 44 4.1.2.2 Collective choice fallacy: ................................................................ 44 4.2 Research Opportunities .................................................................................... 45 4.3 Thesis Research Question ................................................................................ 46 5 MENTAL SIMULATION STUDY ............................................................................. 49 5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 49 5.2 What is Mental Simulation? .............................................................................. 49 5.3 Background ....................................................................................................... 50 5.4 Study Design .................................................................................................... 51 5.5 Methodology ..................................................................................................... 51 5.6 Findings ............................................................................................................ 52 5.6.1 Mental Simulation Instruction Type-I ....................................................... 52 5.6.1.1 Observations- ................................................................................. 53 5.6.1.2 Analysis- ........................................................................................ 53 5.6.2 Mental Simulation Instruction Type-II ...................................................... 54 5.6.2.1 Observations- ................................................................................. 55 5.6.2.2 Analysis- ........................................................................................ 56 5.6.3 Mental Simulation Instruction Type-III ..................................................... 56 5.6.3.1 Observations- ................................................................................. 57 5.6.3.2 Analysis- ........................................................................................ 58 5.7 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 59 5.7.1 Mental Simulation Instructions ................................................................. 59 5.7.2 Mental Simulation Instruction Recommendations .................................... 60 5.7.3 Misconception: Static Kodu ..................................................................... 60 5.8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 61 6 PHYSICAL MANIPULATIVE STUDY ...................................................................... 63 6.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 63 6.2 Background ....................................................................................................... 63 6.3 Experiment ........................................................................................................ 64 6.4 Participant’s and Procedure .............................................................................. 66 6.5 Data Collection and Analysis ............................................................................ 67 6.6 Findings ...........................................................................................................