First Steps Towards Automatically Defining the Difficulty of Maze-Based Programming Challenges

In a world where algorithms are ubiquitous, the development of computational thinking competencies is becoming progressively important among students, technology professionals, and 21st-century citizens in general. Educational games as means promoting skills have gained popularity recent years. Offering efficient educational that promote requires personalized learning paths through adaptive difficulty. The research presented herein first attempt to define difficulty function for maze-based programming challenges using log data obtained from Kodetu, which block-based maze game. Specifically, we conducted three studies with 9- 16-year-old students who were asked solve sequences challenges. Using these studies, investigated characteristics coding limitations affect performance calculated by participants fuzzy rule-based system. results showed turns maze, number total steps blocks provided student performance. regression analysis, defined considers weights factors provides step towards design thinking-related games.