Comparing the Impact of Individual‐ and Team‐Based ChatGPT Collaboration on High School Students' Cognitive Competencies in Programming Education

ABSTRACT Background Increased research attention has recently been given to the topic of programming education, due to its significance in promoting students' critical thinking, complex problem‐solving, creativity, and communication skills—commonly known as the ‘4Cs’. In particular, collaborative programming has been recognised as a promising instructional approach to promote students' cognitive competencies in programming education. However, simply offering students opportunities to collaborate will not necessarily improve their 4Cs. Thus, the potential of ChatGPT has been considered to address the drawbacks of conventional collaborative programming and to improve students' cognitive capabilities. Objective To ascertain whether ChatGPT is a viable instructional tool in collaborative programming, this study proposes the ChatGPT‐CIDI (Clarify, Ideate, Develop and Implement) learning model. Methods A quasi‐experimental method was implemented, wherein 61 students from two 12th‐grade classes participated. One class (Group One) ( n = 28, M age = 17.25) was assigned to individual‐based collaboration using the ChatGPT‐CIDI model, while the second class (Group Two) ( n = 33, M age = 17.61) undertook team‐based collaboration using the same model. Results and Conclusion The empirical results demonstrated that this approach significantly improved students' critical thinking in Group One (individual‐based), compared to Group Two (team‐based). However, neither group experienced significant improvement in their complex problem‐solving, creativity, or communication skills. This study concludes with implications for research and practice, while also indicating the research limitations to determine future research directions.