Unpacking the Effects of GenAI on Cultivating Students' Computational Thinking: A Meta-Analysis.

This article focuses on a meta-analysis examining the effects of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on cultivating students' computational thinking (CT), defined as problem-solving and system design skills grounded in computer science concepts. Integrating 45 effect sizes from 25 empirical studies published between 2022 and 2025, the analysis found that GenAI has a significant moderate positive overall effect on students' CT, with the strongest impact on computational practice, followed by computational concept and computational perspective. The study identified region, teaching mode, and interaction mode as significant moderators, highlighting that GenAI is most effective in Asian contexts, within flipped classroom settings, and when using text-voice combined interactions. The findings suggest tailored educational and technological strategies to optimize GenAI’s role in CT development, while noting limitations such as regional and educational level imbalances in the current research sample.