Should We Use Educational Robots to Introduce Students to Computational Thinking? Insights From Two Experimental Studies.
Background: Teaching programming and computational thinking is becoming a major issue in many education systems. Numerous approaches are possible, but very few studies compare these different ways of implementing programming and computational thinking learning. Objectives: We compared three ways of...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 1 - 20 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Aug2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=186918270&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 186918270 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 02664909 6M1 jtl: Journal of Computer Assisted Learning issn: 02664909 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Aug2025 vid: 41 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell place: Malden, Massachusetts artinfo: ui: 186918270 186918270 186918270 10.1111/jcal.70074 186918270 ppf: 1 ppct: 19 formats: tig: atl: Should We Use Educational Robots to Introduce Students to Computational Thinking? Insights From Two Experimental Studies. aug: au: Sigayret, Kevin Blanc, Nathalie Tricot, André affil: Laboratoire Epsylon UR 4556, Université Paul‐Valéry Montpellier 3, Montpellier, France sug: subj: Problem Solving Robotics Teaching Methods Students Student Performance Appraisal Evaluation Student Experiences Evaluation Sex Factors Cognition Evaluation Human Experimental Studies Software Learning Programming Languages Skill Acquisition Motivation Male Female Questionnaires Child Algorithms Adolescence Pretest-Posttest Design Models, Statistical Repeated Measures Intraclass Correlation Coefficient Data Analysis Software Child: 6-12 years Adolescent: 13-18 years Male Female ab: Background: Teaching programming and computational thinking is becoming a major issue in many education systems. Numerous approaches are possible, but very few studies compare these different ways of implementing programming and computational thinking learning. Objectives: We compared three ways of teaching programming and computational thinking to grade 5 students: unplugged activities, block‐based programming software and educational robotics. Method: This paper re‐exploits previously published data on the comparison between unplugged and plugged‐in (using the block‐based programming software Scratch) learning, by adding a new experimental condition centred on the use of Scratch associated with an educational robot, and incorporates new mixed model statistical analyses. Based on these results, we conducted a second experiment to explore the cognitive load associated with a learning situation on Scratch, with or without an educational robot. Results: Our first experiment revealed that novice grade 5 students using Scratch without a robot learned better programming concepts and skills, compared to students involved in unplugged activities or using Scratch with a robot. Experiment 2 showed that the detrimental effect of using a robot is probably due to an increased extraneous cognitive load in the Scratch with a robot condition. However, robots had a large positive effect on students' motivation. Gender differences were also observed, as girls showed slightly better learning performance but were less motivated than boys when using Scratch without a robot. Conclusions: Overall, these results provide key elements for understanding the advantages and disadvantages of using robots to sustain computational thinking learning in children. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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