Programming and computational thinking concepts and contextual factors in integrated computing activities in U.S. Schools

Integrated computing uses computing tools and concepts to support learning in other disciplines while giving all students opportunities to experience computer science. Integrated computing is often motivated as a way to introduce computing to students in a low-stakes environment, reducing barriers to learning computer science, often especially for underrepresented groups. This dataset examined integrated computing activities implemented in US schools to examine which programming and CT concepts they teach and whether those concepts differed across contexts. We gathered data on 262 integrated computing activities from in-service K-12 teachers and 20 contextual factors related to the classroom (i.e., primary discipline, grade level, programming paradigm, programming language, minimum amount of time the lesson takes, source of the lesson plan), the teacher (i.e., years teaching, current role (classroom teacher, tech specialist, STEM specialist, etc.), grade levels taught, disciplines taught, degrees and certifications, institutional support received for integrated computing, gender, race, self-efficacy), and the school (e.g., socioeconomic status of students, racial composition, number of CS courses offered, number of CS teachers, years CS courses have been taught, number of students, school location (urban, suburban, rural)).

Methods
Procedure
Data about integrated computing lessons in non-CS classrooms were collected from in-service K-12 teachers in the United States via an online survey, and 262 surveys were completed. Participants were recruited first through teacher networks and districts to include diverse populations and then through LinkedIn. Teachers received a $100 gift card upon completion of the survey, which took approximately 30 minutes. Due to the incentive, submissions were screened during data collection to ensure eligibility (i.e., having a valid school district email) and quality (described below).

Instrument
The survey asked about the programming and CT concepts taught in the activities and 20 factors related to classroom, teacher, and school context. The programming concepts included were based on a framework developed by Margulieux et al., 2023. A full list of concepts and contextual factors can be found below. Due to the large sample size, the survey was designed to be primarily quantitative but included a few qualitative questions (e.g., "Please describe in 1-2 sentences the computing learning objective of this activity") and requested teachers to submit their lesson plans. The research team used these qualitative elements to verify data quality, such as by ensuring the lesson included computing and comparing elements of the lesson plans to the quantitative data provided by the teachers. Overall, we found, and excluded, very few instances of low-quality data.

Survey Questions and Descriptive Statistics
Qualitative Questions:
Title of lesson plan
One sentence describing the activity topic (e.g., In this activity, students apply their computational thinking skills to explore the life cycle of a butterfly.)
One sentence describing the disciplinary learning objective (e.g., The primary learning goal is to model the life cycle of a butterfly.)
One sentence describing the computing learning objective (e.g., Students will conditionals to match body features to life stages.)
1-3 sentences describing the instructional paradigm (e.g., Students will discuss butterflies and life cycles with their partners. Then they will modify the program and use conditionals to create the model.)

Quantitative Question Topic: Response Options (descriptive statistics in parentheses)

Programming and CT Concepts
Programming paradigm: Select one: No Programming (80), Unplugged (87), Block-based (69), Text-based (26)
Programming language: Open-ended
Programming concepts: Select all that apply: Operator-arithmetic, Operator-Boolean, Operator-relational, Conditional-if-else, Conditional-if-then, Loop-for loop, Loop-while loop, Loop-loop index variable, Function-define/call, Function-parameter, Variable, Data types (string, integer, etc.), List, Multimedia component (sprite, sound, button, etc.), Multimedia properties (color, location, etc.), Multimedia movement (forward, back, turn), Output-string, Output-variable, User input, Event (M = 3.2, SD = 2.7)
CT concepts: Select all that apply: Algorithms–sequences (158), Algorithms–parallelism (10), Pattern recognition (142), Abstraction (84), Decomposition (89), Debugging (40), Automation (40) (M = 2.1, SD = 1.1)

Classroom Context
Integrated discipline: Select one: Art (5), Language arts (37), Foreign language (2), Math (67), Music (3), Science (61), Social Studies (13)
Grades taught in lesson: Select all that apply: Kindergarten through 12th grade (activities that spanned K-5 = 107, 6-8 = 53, 9-12 = 93, K-12 = 9)
Minimum amount of time the lesson takes: Select one: < 1 hour (90), 1-3 hours (126), 3-8 hours (32), 8+ hours (14)
Source of the lesson plan: Select all that apply: Colleague (16), Online search (18), Professional development (20), Professional organization (23), Created based on an external source by myself or with colleagues (28), Modified from an external source (33), Created by myself or with colleagues (124)

Teacher Information
Number of years teaching: Open-ended, M = 14.11, SD = 7.6
Current role: Select one: Teacher (220), STEM/Tech specialist (24), Librarian (9), Computer lab director (1), Other (8)
Grade levels taught: Select all that apply: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10, 11-12 (grade levels that spanned K-5 = 79, 6-8 = 45, 9-12 = 93, K-12 = 45)
Disciplines taught: Select all that apply: Art (13), Language arts (71), Foreign language (5), Math (134), Music (4), Science (100), Social Studies (54), Computer science (80), Technology (78), Other (8)
Degrees, Certs, endorsements, etc. attained: Select all that apply: Teaching certificate in primary discipline(s) (164), Teaching certificate in CS (17), Bachelor’s degree in primary discipline education (129), Bachelor’s degree in CS or CS education (4), Master’s degree in primary discipline education (163), Master’s degree in CS or CS education (0), Endorsement in computer science education (47), EdD or PhD in education (17), Other (86)
Support for integrated CS/CT development and implementation: Select all that apply: Professional development through my school/district/LEA/RESA (157), Professional development through external organizations (117), Peer/colleague/department collaboration in my school/district/LEA/RESA (130), Peer/colleague collaboration in external organizations (73), Funding for software licensing, hardware, or curricula (69)
Self-efficacy: Views of CT and self-efficacy scale from Yadav, Caeli, Ocak, and Macann, 2022 (M = 4.23 out of 5, SD = 0.60)
Gender: Select one: Man (60), Woman (198), Non-binary/third gender (2), Prefer not to say (2)
Race: Select one: African American or Black (31), American Indian or Indigenous (1), Asian (13), Caucasian or White (193), Latino/a/x or Hispanic (10), Middle Eastern (0), Pacific
Islander (0), Other (14)

School Context
Number of students: Open-ended (M = 1179, SD = 741)
Number of CS teachers: Open-ended (M = 1.6, SD = 1.4)
Number of CS courses: Open-ended (M = 2.1, SD = 2.0)
Number of years CS courses taught: Open-ended (M = 3.0, SD = 2.1)
Racial composition: Give % of each race: American Indian or Native American (M = 1.8%), Asian (M = 4.5%), Black or African American (M = 23.3%), Hispanic or Latino (M = 17.2%), White or Caucasian (M = 47.5%), Other (M = 2.4%)
% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch: Open-ended (M = 56%, SD = 34%)
Type of area: Select one: Rural (90), Suburban (122), Urban (50)