Selection of Learning Apps to Promote Critical Thinking in Programming Students using Fuzzy TOPSIS

The aim of this research was to use intelligent decision support systems to obtain student-centred preferences for learning applications to promote critical thinking in first year programming students. This study focuses on the visual programming environment and critical thinking as the gateway skill for student success in understanding programming. Twenty-five critical thinking criteria were synthesized from the literature. As a quantitative study, 217 randomly selected students from an approximate target population of 500 programming students to rate four learning Apps, namely, Scratch, Alice, Blockly and MIT App Inventor, against critical thinking criteria to establish the App that best promotes critical thinking among first year programming students. There were 175 responses received from the 217 randomly chosen programming students who willingly contributed to the study. Consequently, the distinctiveness of this paper lies in its use of the Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation) multi-criteria decision-making algorithm to rank criteria for critical thinking, calculate their weights on the basis of informed opinion and hence scientifically deduce the best rated App among the available alternatives that promote critical thinking among first year programming students. The results showed that Scratch promoted critical thinking skills the best in first year programming students whilst Blockly promoted critical thinking skills the least. As a contribution to the study, policy-makers and academic staff can be potentially supported to make informed decisions about the types of learning Apps to consider for students when confronted with multiple selection criteria.