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The aim of the study was to determine the effect of the programming instruction process carried out by using mBlock programming tool on the students' computational thinking skills. The study design was one group pretest-post-test experimental design. Study group was consisted of 82 students enrolled to a secondary school in Edremit district of Van province / Turkey. 39 of the participants were female and 43 of them were male. Participants were 6th grade students in three different classes. Instruction process was leaded in 2017-2018 academic year. MBlock tool was used in computer programming instruction process. Teaching sessions were two hours per week, 12 weeks in total. In the instruction process "concepts of software, the problem concept, algorithm concept, algorithm steps belonging to a problem, geometrical shapes in the flow chart, mBlock characters, events & control blocks, coordinate axis & scene section, perception blocks, operator blocks, and variable concepts" were handled respectively. Exercises about these subjects were done. Data were collected by Computational Thinking Levels Scale (CTLS) developed by Korkmaz, Çakir & Özden (2015). CTLS has five sub-dimensions, namely, Creativity, Algorithmic thinking, Collaboration, Critical thinking, and Problem solving. The collected data were corresponding to the normal distribution. The data were analyzed through paired samples t tests. According to the findings, post-test scores of the CTLS were statistically higher than the pre-test scores. In addition to this, all scores for sub dimensions statistically differ in favor of post-tests except problem solving dimension. In other words, the development of higher order thinking skills such as computational thinking can be provided with programming courses where block based tools used. In 2018, Problem Solving and Programming Unit were added to Information Technology and Software curriculum in 5th and 6th grades in Turkey. In light of the findings, it seems that the decision taken by Turkish Ministry of Education is correct.

This study aims to assess the effects of teaching programming with mBlock on self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes considering programming. Particularly, this study tries to research whether there is a gender difference in middle school students or not. The study was conducted in pre-test/post-test quasi experimental design. The participants of the study which was completed in twelve weeks were 82 middle school students. The data were collected through "Educational Computer Games Assisted Learning Coding Attitude Scale" and "Computer Programming Self-efficacy Scale". The results of the research indicate that although the selfefficacy perceptions of boys towards programming were higher than the girls' at the beginning of the research, this difference was closed at the end of the research. The results also show that teaching programming with mBlock to middle school students did not cause gender differences in self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes regarding programming. Although girls' attitudes regarding programming were slightly higher than boys', the difference was not considered to be significant. In addition, it was found that programming with mBlock significantly increased students' self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards programming. As a result, teaching programming with mBlock can provide similar possibilities for both genders in self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes regarding programming.

This study aimed to determine undergraduate and associate degree students' computer programming attitude and self-efficacy levels, and compare them according to thinking style, gender, department, weekly study time, and programming experience variables. The study employed the correlational research model. The researcher attempted to reach all associate and undergraduate students who had received the computer programming course at a state university. The computer programming self-efficacy scale, the computer programming attitude scale, and the holistic and analytic thinking in problem-solving scale were used to collect research data. Results suggested that the participants with different thinking styles showed significant differences regarding programming attitude and programming self-efficacy. Programming attitude and thinking style were significant predictors of programming self-efficacy. No difference was observed between genders in terms of the common effect and the partial effect of programming attitude and programming self-efficacy. However; differences were observed between participants from different departments and with different weekly study time. There was also a significant difference between the participants with different programming experience levels in terms of the common effect of programming attitude and self-efficacy, whereas no difference was found in terms of attitude alone.