Educational Robotics in Primary School: Measuring the Development of Computational Thinking Skills with the Bebras Tasks

Abstract

Research has shown that educational robotics can be an effective tool to increase students’ acquisition of knowledge in the subjects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and promote, at the same time, a progression in the development of computational thinking (CT) skills in K–12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) education. Within this research field, the present study first sought to assess the effect of a robotics laboratory on the acquisition of CT-related skills in primary school children. The study also aimed to compare the magnitude of the effect of the laboratory across third- and fourth-grade students. For the purpose of the study, a quasi-experimental post-test-only design was adopted, and a group of 51 students, from third- and fourth-grade classrooms, participating in the robotics laboratories, were compared to a control group of 32 students from classrooms of the same grades. A set of Bebras tasks was selected as an overall measure of CT skills and was administered to children in both the intervention and control groups. Overall, the results showed that programming robotics artefacts may exert a positive impact on students’ learning of computational thinking skills. Moreover, the effect of the intervention was found to be greater among third-grade children.

The Effect of Educational Robotic Applications on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis Study

“…In addition, it can be stated that students' hand skills increased, they rendered the course interesting by enabling the use of rich and accessible material and the students were able to learn having fun and thus increased their academic achievement (Ozdogru, 2013;Vollstedt, 2005). On the other hand, there are some studies indicating that there is no significant increase in terms of the academic achievement of educational robotic applications or where there are no significant differences when compared with other studies (Cakir, 2019;Chiazzese, Arrigo, Chifari, Lonati & Tosto, 2019;Jomento-Cruz, 2010;Li, Huang, Jiang & Chang, 2016). The reason for obtaining different results in these studies in the literature may be the application of courses in different ways, differences in the activities used during the course and the teacher's management of the process in a different way.…”

The Effect of Bioinformatics Module on Molecular Genetics Concepts on Senior High School Students’ Computational Thinking Skills

“…Fink (2008) said that comparing DNA sequences and translating the DNA to protein needs the skill of pattern recognition. Pattern recognition consists of recognizing specific repeated situations and generalizing them (Chiazzese et al,. 2019).…”

“…2020) who developed a module for computer engineering students in university to improve CTs. Chiazzese et al (2019) assessed CTs of students in K-12 education after learning programming about robotics. The result showed that programming robotics has a positive impact on students' learning of CTs.…”

“…The science curriculum in the Biology in senior high school in Indonesia molecular genetics and DNA technology regarding analyzing the relationship between structural and the functional of genes, DNA, chromosomes, analyzing mutation in living things, analyzing gene regulation in living things, using principles of Biotechnology and its application as an effort to improve human welfare and explaining the theories, principles, and mechanism of evolution and speciation. To establish the scope of molecular genetics in this study, we specified target concepts regarding biotechnology and DNA technology from National Science Curriculum of the Republic of Indonesia (Couch et al, 2015;Republic of Indonesia, 2018). We compiled key ideas and their corresponding target concepts along (Table 2).…”

Visual and unplugged coding with smart toys

“…Computer Science Unplugged (CS Unplugged [1]) and Bebras tasks [4,6] are a widely used collections of activities to introduce both children and adults to ideas and concepts from computer science, without having to use a digital device. With the variety of material appearing, the term "Unplugged" is currently used for computer science teaching activities that do not involve programming and the term refers to a general pedagogical approach.…”