Next Article in Journal
Usability and Engagement Study for a Serious Virtual Reality Game of Lunar Exploration Missions
Next Article in Special Issue
Evaluation of the Forms of Education of High School Students Using a Hybrid Model Based on Various Optimization Methods and a Neural Network
Previous Article in Journal
Company–University Collaboration in Applying Gamification to Learning about Insurance
Previous Article in Special Issue
Computational Thinking and Down Syndrome: An Exploratory Study Using the KIBO Robot
 
 
Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
Journals
Informatics
Volume 6
Issue 4
10.3390/informatics6040043
informatics-logo
Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Edit a Special Issue
► Article Menu

Article Menu

share announcement question_answer thumb_up
...
textsms
...
Article

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

by
Giuseppe Chiazzese
1,
Marco Arrigo
1,
Antonella Chifari
1,
Violetta Lonati
2 and
Crispino Tosto
1,*
1
Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Palermo 90146, Italy
2
Dipartimento di Informatica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano 20112, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
This paper is an extended version of our paper published in the Sixth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality—TEEM’18, Salamanca, Spain, 24–26 October 2018.
Informatics 2019, 6(4), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6040043
Received: 25 July 2019 / Revised: 12 September 2019 / Accepted: 29 September 2019 / Published: 1 October 2019
(This article belongs to the Collection Promotion of Computational Thinking and Informatics Education in Pre-University Studies)
View Full-Text Download PDF

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. View Full-Text
Keywords: robotics education; computational thinking; coding; project-based learning; Bebras tasks robotics education; computational thinking; coding; project-based learning; Bebras tasks
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
SciFeed

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Chiazzese, G.; Arrigo, M.; Chifari, A.; Lonati, V.; Tosto, C. Educational Robotics in Primary School: Measuring the Development of Computational Thinking Skills with the Bebras Tasks. Informatics 2019, 6, 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6040043

AMA Style

Chiazzese G, Arrigo M, Chifari A, Lonati V, Tosto C. Educational Robotics in Primary School: Measuring the Development of Computational Thinking Skills with the Bebras Tasks. Informatics. 2019; 6(4):43. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6040043

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chiazzese, Giuseppe, Marco Arrigo, Antonella Chifari, Violetta Lonati, and Crispino Tosto. 2019. "Educational Robotics in Primary School: Measuring the Development of Computational Thinking Skills with the Bebras Tasks" Informatics 6, no. 4: 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6040043

Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

1
Back to TopTop