Impact of teaching strategies for the development of computational thinking in secondary school students

In today's educational field, computational thinking is an indispensable skill for students, not only for programming but also for mathematics, science, humanities, and other areas. Computational thinking assumes that the solution to a problem cannot be obtained immediately; rather, it must be analyzed carefully and the solution must be found by dividing the problem into separate, manageable parts. It also assumes the ability to detect analogous patterns in problems and to develop algorithms and solutions in a logical and structured manner. The research is based on a literature review methodology and is structured with a mixed approach, as both qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed. To this end, relevant academic articles and theses from various scientific databases were selected and analyzed, to which inclusion criteria were applied. All of this allows us to assess the adequacy and relevance of the selected works. This review addresses the pedagogical approaches used in relation to the impact of teaching strategies (problem-based learning, gamification, use of technological platforms such as Scratch, and similar) and the development of computational thinking skills. The results show that teaching strategies improve learners' performance, but difficulties were also recognized in teacher training and technological infrastructure. That said, the application of teaching strategies designed for computational thinking has a positive impact on secondary school learners, although their effectiveness is limited by the challenges of training barriers and educational resources