Effectiveness of Activity-Based Teaching with Unplugged Activities in Fostering Computational Thinking Skills among Grade 8 Students in Mathematics: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Computational thinking has become an important educational skill because it enables students to analyze problems, recognize patterns, design logical steps, and focus on relevant information while solving academic and real-life problems. In mathematics education, these skills are particularly useful because mathematical learning requires reasoning, sequencing, abstraction, and systematic problem-solving. The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of activity-based teaching with unplugged activities in fostering computational thinking skills among Grade 8 students in mathematics after controlling for pre-test scores. The study was quantitative in nature and employed a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test control group design. The sample consisted of 60 Grade 8 male students from a public school in District Faisalabad. The students were divided into two equal groups: experimental group and control group, with 30 students in each group. The experimental group was taught mathematics through activity-based teaching with unplugged activities, whereas the control group was taught through the conventional teaching method. A computational thinking test was used as pre-test and post-test to measure students’ computational thinking skills. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test, effect size, and ANCOVA. The findings showed that the experimental group improved significantly from pre-test to post-test. The post-test comparison also showed a significant difference in favour of the experimental group. ANCOVA results confirmed that teaching method had a significant effect on students’ post-test computational thinking scores after controlling for pre-test scores, F(1, 57) = 62.861, p < .001, partial η² = .524. The study concluded that activity-based teaching with unplugged activities was more effective than the conventional teaching method in fostering computational thinking skills among Grade 8 students in mathematics. The study recommends integrating unplugged activity-based tasks into mathematics classrooms, especially in contexts where digital resources are limited.