The developmental characteristics of computational thinking and its relationship with technical skills: taking the department of engineering as an example

Previous research suggests that there should be a correlation between computational thinking and traditional cognitive and motor skills. At present, academia either considers cognitive skills a part of computational thinking, or investigates the correlation between computational thinking and cognitive skills. Current research on computational thinking focuses on the design of teaching models to improve computational thinking ability and on measures for evaluating computational thinking. The association of computational thinking with motor skills is rarely discussed. From the perspective of embodied cognition theory, an association must exist, but its mechanisms have not been studied. Therefore, this study explores the effect of the teaching model of creative problem solving (CPS) on computational thinking and its internal correlation with technical skills. It was found that CPS can not only improve the computational thinking ability of students majoring in engineering, but also promote their corresponding motor skills. However, the students’ previous academic background had a certain influence on their learning outcomes. Students at universities of technology experienced a greater improvement in their computational thinking and motor skills than students at general universities. There is a certain correlation between computational thinking and motor skills, and the interaction between them should be properly considered in future teaching and curriculum design so as to improve students’ learning effectiveness.