Computational Thinking and Technological Mediation in Vulnerable Early Childhood Education

Abstract

The growing integration of digital technologies in early childhood education requires an understanding not only of their effectiveness, but also of their role as mediators of learning and communication processes, particularly in socially vulnerable contexts. Although computational thinking has gained increasing attention in early education, few empirical studies comparatively analyse how different technological modalities mediate learning within a single educational intervention. This study addresses this gap by examining the educational impact of a multimodal computational thinking intervention based on unplugged activities, mobile applications and educational robotics, implemented with five-year-old children in a high-needs public school. A quasi-experimental single-group pretest–posttest design was adopted (N=16), assessing six computational thinking dimensions: decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, modelling and simulation, algorithms and evaluation. The results reveal significant improvements across all analysed dimensions, with differentiated effects depending on the modality used. Unplugged activities promoted reflection, verbalisation and pattern recognition; mobile applications strengthened sequencing and symbolic prediction; and educational robotics produced the strongest gains in abstraction and evaluation, while also reducing performance variability among learners. These findings conceptualise computational thinking as a technologically mediated pedagogical and communicative practice and provide empirical evidence to inform the design of inclusive and equitable early childhood interventions in socially vulnerable educational contexts.