Manuscript received April 15, 2022; revised July 7, 2022; accepted November 1, 2022.
Abstract—This study investigated the effects of affective
factors on computational thinking and problem-solving.
Computer science subjects are becoming part of the regular
curricula in K-12 and higher education to enhance
computational problem-solving skills. However, affective factors
influencing computational thinking skills and computational
thinking components predicting problem-solving skills have yet
to be fully explored. This paper proposed a conceptual model to
predict (a) four affective factors that influence computational
thinking self-efficacy and (b) six computational thinking
components that affect problem-solving self-efficacy. Structural
equation modeling was used to analyze self-report data from
college students to examine the direct relationships among study
variables. The findings showed that two affective factors (i.e.,
programming self-efficacy and computer science usefulness)
significantly predicted computational thinking self-efficacy and
influenced problem-solving self-efficacy. Also, two
computational thinking components (i.e., algorithm and
debugging) were the significant determinants of
problem-solving self-efficacy. The results validate the
importance of affective factors in computer science education
and suggest specific computational thinking activities that
should be emphasized in computer science curricula to facilitate
problem-solving skills.
Index Terms—Affective factors, computational thinking,
computer science education, block-based programming
Hyunchang Moon is with the Department of Pediatrics, Medical College
of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, USA. E-mail:
hymoon@augusta.edu (H.M.)
Jongpil Cheon is with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA.
*Correspondence: jongpil.cheon@ttu.edu (J.C.)
Cite: Hyunchang Moon and Jongpil Cheon*, "An Investigation of Affective Factors Influencing Computational Thinking and Problem-Solving," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 1513-1519, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).