Computational Thinking in the Era of Data Science

Recent years have seen the integration of computer science, mathematicsa and statistics, together with real-world domain knowledge, into a new research and applications field: data science.4 Just as data science integrates knowledge and skills from computer science, statistics, and a real-world application domain, data thinking, we propose, integrates computational thinking, statistical thinking, and domain thinking. Computational thinking was first introduced by Papert13 and, a quarter of a century later, was illuminated and elaborated on by Wing.15 As it turns out, exploring the novelty of data thinking uncovers new facets of computational thinking. In this Viewpoint, we first present our interpretation of the concept of data thinking and then, based on insights gained from the discussion about data thinking, we propose a timely need has emerged to introduce data thinking into computer science education along with computational thinking, in the context of various real-world domains using real-life data.