Examination of middle school mathematics curriculum in the context of computational thinking skills

The aim of this research is to examine the acquisitions in the secondary school mathematics curriculum in the context of computational thinking skills. For this purpose, first of all, the indicators of computational thinking skills were created by the literature, and then the acquisitions in the relevant curriculum were examined in relation to the indicators in question. The research, employing the document analysis method, utilized content analysis during the data analysis process. According to the results obtained from the research, it was seen that approximately 44% of the acquisitions in the curriculum were related to the algorithm dimension, 28% with pattern-model extraction, and 21% with abstraction. However, it has been observed that acquisitions in the domain of numbers and operations are particularly associated with the 'algorithm' dimension, acquisitions in algebra and geometry and measurement learning domains are linked with 'pattern-model extraction,' acquisitions in data processing learning domain are related to 'evaluation and debugging,' and achievements in probability learning domain are strongly correlated with the dimensions of 'abstraction' and 'pattern-model extraction’. When considering different grade levels, it has been concluded that dimensions associated with 5th and 8th-grade acquisitions are respectively ranked as 'algorithm,' 'pattern-model extraction,' and 'abstraction,' while dimensions related to 6th and 7th-grade acquisitions are listed as 'algorithm,' 'pattern-model extraction,' and 'decomposition'.