Yimin Ning
Background As computational thinking becomes increasingly essential in education, it is important to understand how external support influences its development through students’ cognitive factors.Objectives This study, grounded in the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory, investigates how school support affects students’ thinking style, creative thinking, STEM attitude, and AI literacy, and how these factors contribute to computational thinking and academic achievement.Method Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 1748 students. Both Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) were employed for symmetric and asymmetric analyses.Findings School support significantly enhanced students’ cognitive factors, which in turn promoted computational thinking. These factors also mediated the relationship between school support and computational thinking. fsQCA identified 15 high-consistency configuration paths as sufficient conditions influencing computational thinking.Implications The study offers a theoretical framework for understanding how external and cognitive factors shape computational thinking and provides practical guidance for educational interventions and policy design.