Theoretical Computer Science in Basic Education: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic literature review on theoretical computer science in basic education. Computing education has been reignited with the new computational thinking wave, calling out for the importance of problemsolving skills. Yet, it has been focusing its efforts in programming with visual languages, games and robotics. Meanwhile, theoretical computer science has rarely been touched in education. Therefore this work investigates 17 journal and conference paper that present solutions including this topic on basic education in the last 20 years. To conclude, a discussion about what topics of theoretical computer science were used takes place and a need for further research is identified.