Computational Thinking in Preschool Age: A Case Study in Greece

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Your work was really interesting as I research in this same area but with older kids in secondary education. Congratulation to a well structured publication and the findings you presented.

A very minor thing I would suggest you change are some of the headlines that are not formated as such. It was confusing to me to read and will be for others. On lines 145, 152, 157 etc. you clearly have sth. like a heading but it reads like an incomplete sentence. I think it is clear without the headings so maybe just remove these.

And if I want to be nitpicky, in line 388 the bracket is ) instead of ] :)

Given my close proximity to the topic I don't agree with all your assumptions and find your explanations and discussion fascinating. I would like to learn more about your work and am looking forward to this publication and learning your names to gain further insight in your area of expertise. Well done and all the best from Austria.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the comments. We have made efforts to minimize every typographic, language or other error. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I'd like to start by thanking you for the opportunity to review this interesting and pertinent paper. The theme is very current and, overall, presents data that can be very interesting to understand different points of view on the development of Computational Thinking in Pre-school Education.

Aspects that I highlight as being well accomplished: the abstract, precise and with the essential information, and the introduction, where the objectives of the research are clearly defined.

1. the content of point 1.2 - concept of Computational Thinking is part of the content of point 1.1; the "fundamental parts" the authors refer to in point 1.2 are the different facets that make up the concept of Computational Thinking.

2. The content of point 1.3 - is clearly insufficient given the research objectives and the results presented; focused on resources that can be used with preschool children to develop CT skills, the vast majority of these resources are not used in the research; still in this point, the state of the art in three key aspects is missing - readiness of preschool children to develop CT; parents' perspective on the use of technologies and on CT, and the perspectives of early childhood teachers on CT and how it can be promoted in the context of preschool education.

3. in the Materials and Methods, under point 2.3. Tools, they refer to the criteria for the assessment of the children, but do not present the criteria according to which they organized the instruments and assessed the parents and kindergarten workers. In this point, it is also not clear what they assessed in parameters such as "comprehension of concept" (which concept?) or "original project creation" (how did they assess the originality of the projects?).

4. In the Results, particularly in points 3.2 and 3.3, a synthesis of the collected data is presented; I believe that the paper would gain in quality if the data were more clearly and explicitly presented.

5. In the Discussion, the authors analyze the results of the parents and the teachers, but there is no discussion on the results of the children; still in this point, they present the limitations of the study, which should appear in point 5. Conclusions;

6. The references are very dated, which immediately conditions the whole paper, both at the level of justification and presentation of the state of the art, and at the level of analysis and discussion of the results; it is suggested that the bibliography be updated and include more recent research that has been developed in the area.

Author Response

I'd like to start by thanking you for the opportunity to review this interesting and pertinent paper. The theme is very current and, overall, presents data that can be very interesting to understand different points of view on the development of Computational Thinking in Pre-school Education.

Aspects that I highlight as being well accomplished: the abstract, precise and with the essential information, and the introduction, where the objectives of the research are clearly defined.

1. the content of point 1.2 - concept of Computational Thinking is part of the content of point 1.1; the "fundamental parts" the authors refer to in point 1.2 are the different facets that make up the concept of Computational Thinking.

Response: We thank the reviewer for the comment. Chapters 1.1 and 1.2 have been altered according to the reviewer’s comments and changes were made so that all information on CT and its fundamental parts are precise.

2. The content of point 1.3 - is clearly insufficient given the research objectives and the results presented; focused on resources that can be used with preschool children to develop CT skills, the vast majority of these resources are not used in the research; still in this point, the state of the art in three key aspects is missing - readiness of preschool children to develop CT; parents' perspective on the use of technologies and on CT, and the perspectives of early childhood teachers on CT and how it can be promoted in the context of preschool education.

Response: We have largely updated section 1.3 in order to accommodate these. Regarding the comment: ” the state of the art in three key aspects is missing - readiness of preschool children to develop CT; parents' perspective on the use of technologies and on CT, and the perspectives of early childhood teachers on CT and how it can be promoted in the context of preschool education”  we added content in paragraphs appearing in chapter 1.2 , pages 3 to 4.

3. in the Materials and Methods, under point 2.3. Tools, they refer to the criteria for the assessment of the children, but do not present the criteria according to which they organized the instruments and assessed the parents and kindergarten workers. In this point, it is also not clear what they assessed in parameters such as "comprehension of concept" (which concept?) or "original project creation" (how did they assess the originality of the projects?).

Response:  Chapter 2.3. “Tools” has been revised and the choice of instruments assessing the parents and Kindergarten teachers is justified and explained. Even more, further details on the way the researcher studied Kindergardeners’ projects are given, so that it is clear that several concepts of CT were first taught through the ScratchJr tutorial and then assessed with the rubric. Lastly, in the same chapter further information are given on the assessment of the original project creation, where the level of creativity was assessed, not the level of originality, since that is already a fact.

4. In the Results, particularly in points 3.2 and 3.3, a synthesis of the collected data is presented; I believe that the paper would gain in quality if the data were more clearly and explicitly presented.

Response: We thank the reviewer for the comment. In the revised manuscript sections 3.2 and 3.3 have been enriched with two tables describing the demographics of the sample (parents/teachers) as well as with quotations from the interviews that highlight the findings.

5. In the Discussion, the authors analyze the results of the parents and the teachers, but there is no discussion on the results of the children; still in this point, they present the limitations of the study, which should appear in point 5. Conclusions;

Response:  In the Discussion section, we now added new content on the results regarding children, as advised.We also added information in the Conclusions chapter and redirected the limitations of the study at the end of the chapter.

6. The references are very dated, which immediately conditions the whole paper, both at the level of justification and presentation of the state of the art, and at the level of analysis and discussion of the results; it is suggested that the bibliography be updated and include more recent research that has been developed in the area.

Response: We thank the reviewer for the comment. We have fully updated the reference list to include recent studies. Most of them have been cited in response to previous comments as well as in the Introduction and Discussion sections.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the opportunity to review again the paper presented and I start by mentioning that it was clearly improved in relation to the version initially submitted, making it clearer and much more interesting. Practically all the questions that were asked were answered in a direct and enlightening form.

Of all the aspects that I had pointed out as needing improvement, only one remained unclear and I believe it could be revised with a view to its publication. In point 2.3. Tools, although the authors make the criteria for assessment of children and families more explicit, it remains unclear what the assessment criteria for early childhood teachers are.

Author Response

Of all the aspects that I had pointed out as needing improvement, only one remained unclear and I believe it could be revised with a view to its publication. In point 2.3. Tools, although the authors make the criteria for assessment of children and families more explicit, it remains unclear what the assessment criteria for early childhood teachers are.

Response: In lines 262-267, section 2.3 of the revised manuscript we provide now a brief description of the questionaire that was sent to preschool teachers. The results from this analysis are listed in section 3.3 (as before).

"Finally, the preschool teachers’ perception and opinions on CT were gathered through an on-line questionnaire, uploaded on various Kindergarten Teachers’ groups on social media. The questionnaire consisted of multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions, designed accordingly to collect descriptive and explanatory data on Kindergarten Teachers’ opinions, behaviors, characteristics, and attitudes regarding the use of a PC or tablets in the classroom and on CT. "