Page 102 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

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Chapter 5
Two steps are taken to obtain the necessary data to answer both questions. First, inter-rater agreement is assessed by having two teachers rate the same products and compute the inter-rater agreement. Second, the proficiency levels of projects made by students of different education level — HAVO and VWO — are compared to investigate whether differences are in the expected direction.
5.2 Background and Related Work
5.2.1 Computational Thinking: Modeling
Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer to solve them and representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations are integral parts of computational thinking (CT) (CSTA Computational Thinking Task Force, 2011). With the arrival of computers into schools, new venues are created to support students’ learning in various disciplines through the use of computer models, i.e. models that are implemented and run as computer programs (Blikstein & Wilensky, 2009; Overveld et al., 2015). Wilensky argues, “Computational modeling has the potential to give students means of expressing and testing explanations of phenomena both in the natural and social worlds” (Wilensky, 2014), as do Caspersen and Nowack (2013b). Indeed, modeling plays a significant role in the development and learning of science (Justi & Gilbert, 2002) and CS equips the students to actively engage in learning science by providing tools and techniques to engage in modeling, thus enabling them to provide meaning to the learning both of the discipline at hand (Gilbert, 2006) and CS.
In the new 2019 CS curriculum, for the intended learning outcomes of the learning objective Computational Science, in one of our previous studies we developed an operational description that describes the modeling cycle for simulation modeling through its elements purpose, research, abstraction, formulation, requirements/specification, implementation, verification/validation, experiment, analysis, and reflection. Furthermore, in that study we advocated to use agent-based modeling (ABM) when teaching Computational Science since it is a suitable simulation modeling method for use in secondary CS education (Grgurina et al., 2016) and here we focus specifically on ABM type of computer models.