Learning Computational Thinking Together: Effects of Gender Differences in Collaborative Middle School Robotics Program (original) (raw)
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Computational Thinking Education
Robotics is a robust vehicle for supporting the development of computational thinking in students. Educational robotics activities unfold in a multidimensional problem space that requires the integration of programming, building, and environmental aspects of the activity. Students working collaboratively with robotics have the opportunity to adopt roles within the group that are aligned to these multiple dimensions (e.g., programmer, builder, and analyst). Group roles are an important element of all collaborative learning, but especially in a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environment, as the roles help to regulate group activity and learning. In this observational, microgenetic case study, we investigated the relationship of the roles middle school-aged girls adopted to the collaborative interactions they engaged in, and, ultimately to the development of computational thinking evidenced as a result of role participation. The video and audiotaped data used in this study were collected at a 1-day introduction to robotics workshop for girls. Our mixed methods approach included sequential and qualitative analysis of the behavioral and verbal interactions of two groups of girls (n 6) who participated in the workshop. Our results indicate that the emergence of distinct roles correlates with periods of collaboration and periods of parallel solo work, which, in turn, had an impact on student's engagement in computational thinking including solution planning, algorithmic and debugging operations, and the design of the robotic device. Moreover, students who engaged in greater levels of collaboration selected more difficult challenges to solve within the robotics environment. Suggestions for future research are provided.
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2021
Recently educational robotics has expanded into curriculum beyond traditional STEM fields, and which can also be used to foster computational thinking (CT) skills. Prior research has shown numerous interdisciplinary benefits related to CT, however, these influential factors have often been investigated with relatively few variables. This study investigated factors that may lead to 4th and 5th grade elementary school students’ development of computational thinking skills in collaborative robotics activities by hypothesizing a model which proposed that a problem solving inventory, intrinsic motivation, and enjoyment were the main predictors of computational thinking skills. The model was then tested by surveying students with several psychometric inventories where a revised model was then constructed. The study found significant relationships between perceived competence and enjoyment, and learning motivation, and intrinsic motivation. Another important finding was that problem solvin...
Development of Computational Thinking Skills through Educational Robotics
2018
Computational thinking (CT) is an important concept in modern education. The scientific community is not only investigating the skills involved in CT but, is also trying to establish how these skills can be developed and through what technological means. Meanwhile, a few studies have investigated the effectiveness of educational robotics (ER) as technological means which can support the development of CT but, issues of measurement of CT (i.e., using validated instruments) seem to hinder the validity of these investigations. In this paper, two quasi-experimental studies were conducted to address students’ CT gains linked to their participation in ER activities. The first study was conducted at a primary school in the Eastern Mediterranean; 15 consented students participated in ER activities for five weeks. The second study included 16 students in a secondary school in the same region, who participated in ER activities for three months. Quantitative results, based on a valid measure o...
Learning Performance of Different Genders’ Computational Thinking
Sustainability
While the role of computational thinking (CT) has been widely reported in technology applications and further integrated into interdisciplinary learning, the integration of pedagogy-supported interdisciplinary activities for the empowerment of girls’ learning must not solely emphasise CT problem-solving skills. Rather, it must scaffold them with interactive learning that supports their characteristics while catering to gender equality. In this study, a gender-balanced interdisciplinary activity, integrating CT with Mandarin learning (ML), was designed for an elementary school in the Mandarin as a Second Language learning context using Social Robots (SRs). It sought to verify the results of the proposed method along with focused activities and interaction in an SR-integrated activity on the CT abilities and target-language learning of young learners. A total of 46 Grade 5 students, 26 boys and 20 girls, participated in the experiment. The study used a quasi-experimental method by exa...
Information Discovery and Delivery
Purpose This study aims to investigate the relationship between the personal traits and computational thinking skills of second graders within the context of robotics activities. Design/methodology/approach Through literature review, a research model and hypotheses were tested with 122 second graders after robotic activities. Findings The hypothesized model showed that learning preference, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy were the main predictors of coding achievement and computational thinking skills, while no direct relationship was found between learning preference, intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. The final path analysis revealed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation predict self-efficacy, self-efficacy predicts coding achievement and coding achievement predicts computational thinking skills. Another important finding was the strong impact of self-efficacy on coding achievement, as well as computational thinking skills. Results are interpreted with reference to implica...
A Case Study on How Children Develop Computational Thinking Collaboratively with Robotics Toys
International Journal of Educational Technology and Learning
This article reports on a case study on how robotics toys provide the affordances for developing computational thinking (henceforth abbreviated to CT) in young learners. The three key constructs of CT-abstraction, algorithms and automation-are used in the research. The study results identify how children interact with robotics toys collaboratively and acquire CT skills. Problems were presented to the children through planned nonroutine and immersive collaborative group activities. The Situations in which they externalised their inquiries and internalised new knowledge were observed. A detailed examination of the data collected was made to determine which robotics toys mediated the children's acquisition while seamlessly switching between individual and collaborative activities and has led to the development of a framework of the stages in CT learning designs. This paper synthesises the relevant classroom activity designs in addressing CT as a general term that involves solving problems, entails a whole set of mental tools that enable people to reduce complex problems into readily solvable subtasks and composes algorithms that are executable by machines. Moreover, the article will also include details and analyses of the selection of commercially available technologies for developing CT in the young learners in the study.
International Journal of STEM Education
Background Educational robotics (ER) is increasingly used in classrooms to implement activities aimed at fostering the development of students’ computational thinking (CT) skills. Though previous works have proposed different models and frameworks to describe the underlying concepts of CT, very few have discussed how ER activities should be implemented in classrooms to effectively foster CT skill development. Particularly, there is a lack of operational frameworks, supporting teachers in the design, implementation, and assessment of ER activities aimed at CT skill development. The current study therefore presents a model that allows teachers to identify relevant CT concepts for different phases of ER activities and aims at helping them to appropriately plan instructional interventions. As an experimental validation, the proposed model was used to design and analyze an ER activity aimed at overcoming a problem that is often observed in classrooms: the trial-and-error loop, i.e., an o...
Journal of Computer Education, 2024
The importance of coding and robotics education in the field of computer sciences has recently been a widely discussed and studied topic in research dealing with educational issues. It is acknowledged that the development of these skills plays a significant role in children’s future careers. Therefore, the present study uses the meta-analysis method to examine the studies dealing with whether coding and robotics activities targeting pre-school, primary school, secondary school, and high school students have the potential to improve their computational thinking and problem-solving skills. To achieve this purpose, the study focuses on how coding and robotics activities implemented in experimental studies conducted with K–12 students between 2011 and 2021 affect the computational thinking and problem-solving skills of students. The meta-analysis includes data from 55 studies, consisting of 64 independent effect sizes. The participant pool for this analysis consists of 5158 individuals from different nations, with 3074 in experimental groups and 2084 in control groups. The study utilized the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols checklist. We used the courses that implemented coding and robotics activities, as well as the age ranges of the participants as moderator variables. The moderator analysis revealed that the effect of coding and robotics activities on computational thinking and problem-solving skills differs according to age group. In conclusion, the present study found that coding and robotics activities contributed to the development of K–12 level students’ computational thinking and problem-solving skills.
Nurturing Secondary School Student Computational Thinking Through Educational Robotics
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 2022
Digital literacy is becoming a key factor in today’s digital revolution age. Computational Thinking (CT) is a new digital literacy that is gradually being introduced in the school curriculum due to its applicability in the daily problem-solving process. Educational Robotics (ER) has been increasingly used as a pedagogical tool to attract students to learn computer programming, and when integrated with CT, they can be used to develop high-order thinking skills. However, intertwining between CT and ER remains a challenge for teachers. This paper describes a method to expose secondary school children to CT concepts and skills through ER learning activities. The method integrates the four CT core concepts, which are problem analysis and algorithm; abstraction; pattern recognition; and decomposition, in a two days’ ER workshop implementation. The result of the study shows that the method of integrating CT with ER has the potential to nurture students’ CT and programming skills. This stud...
Assessing elementary students’ computational thinking in everyday reasoning and robotics programming
Computers & Education, 2017
Based on a framework of computational thinking (CT) adapted from Computer Science Teacher Association's standards, an instrument was developed to assess fifth grade students' CT. The items were contextualized in two types of CT application (coding in robotics and reasoning of everyday events). The instrument was administered as a pre and post measure in an elementary school where a new humanoid robotics curriculum was adopted by their fifth grade. Results show that the instrument has good psychometric properties and has the potential to reveal student learning challenges and growth in terms of CT.