Students’ development of Computational Thinking  and Teachers’ professional development via Bebras through Gamification: A systematic literature review

The Bebras Challenge is an international initiative that promotes computational thinking among students through fun and engaging challenges. It incorporates gamification elements, which play a significant role in making learning more interactive and motivating. For teachers, it offers valuable professional development opportunities, helping them to incorporate these concepts into their teaching practices. However, so far, a limited number of studies have been conducted to investigate Bebras Educational Competition and Gamification for the development of students’ computational thinking in secondary education. Also, while the Bebras Challenge is widely recognized for its role in promoting computational thinking through engaging tasks, the specific intersection of Bebras, gamification, and teacher development is a relatively underexplored research area. Specifically, for this paper seven databases were searched, and 33 papers were finally selected for this review. The findings seem to shed light on whether Bebras competition might enhance the development of students’ computational thinking, and to present what could be the potential impact and effectiveness of a gamified learning approach included in Bebras initiative for promoting computational thinking skills among students, especially in secondary education. A significant conclusion stemming from findings of this review, is that the learning of teachers at a professional level, and the development of their expertise, leads them to changes in teaching practices that have as a final result the improvement of student learning and the development of students’ computational thinking skills