Effects of robotic coding activities on the effectiveness of secondary school students' self-efficacy for coding

In this study, it was aimed to determine whether robotic coding activities at secondary school level had any significant effect on students’ self-efficacy perceptions related to block-based programming. Data were collected by "self-proficiency perception scale for block-based programming" prepared by Altun and Kasalak (2018). Within the scope of the study, 5-week robotic coding activities were planned, followed by 58 students in a public school. According to pre-test and post-test results of the students, there was a significant change in intra-group positive direction in the self-efficacy perception scores of both simple and complex block-based programming (tsimple = -5.01, p = 0.00, tcomplex = -8.84, p = 0.00). Across various variables, when we look at the differentiation of self-efficacy perceptions regarding block-based programming, it is found that it does not differ significantly according to gender (tsimple = -0.58, p = 0.56, tcomplex = 0.87, p = 0.39), computer ownership at home (tsimple = -1.23, p = 0.22, tcomplex = -1.23, p = 0.22), Internet connection ownership at home (tsimple = -0.37, p = 0.22, tcomplex = -0.44, p = 0.66) and the possibility to study Scratch program out of course (tsimple = -0.91, p = 0.37, tcomplex = -0.91, p = 0.37)

Test for assessing coding skills in early childhood

This research aims to develop a valid and reliable test to determine the coding skill levels of 5-7 years old children in early childhood. The study sample consists of children aged 5-7 who attend primary and pre-school education institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Agri and Gaziantep city center in the 2020-2021 academic year. Data were obtained from 308 children, 101 of whom were five years old, 100 were six years old, and 107 were seven. As a data collection tool in research, the "Personal Information Form" containing personal information about children and their parents and the "Early Childhood Coding Skills Assessment Test" developed by the researcher to evaluate the coding skill levels of 5-7-year-old children were used. In the validity analysis to determine the test's validity and reliability, content-structure validity, criterion-based validity analysis, similar scale compatibility validity, tetrachoric factor analysis, and item difficulty analysis; In the reliability analysis, KR-20 reliability analysis was used. As a result of the findings obtained from the research, the "Early Childhood Coding Skills Assessment Test" is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to determine the skill levels of 5-7-year-old children unplugged coding and robotic coding

The Effect of Block Coding (Scratch) Activities Integrated into the 5E Learning Model in Science Teaching on Students’ Computational Thinking Skills and Programming Self-Efficacy

This study was carried out to determine the effect of Scratch-based coding applications integrated into the 5E learning model used in science teaching on students’ computational thinking skills and self-efficacy towards block-based programming. In addition, students’ perceptions of the activity were measured after each Scratch activity, which was applied at different stages of the course and with different difficulty. The study employed the pretest-posttest control group less design, one of the quasi-experimental methods. The study sample consist of 22 6th grade students attending a public school in Turkey located in a district center in the Eastern Black Sea region. The study was carried out in a five-week period in the 2022-2023 academic years. Computational thinking scale and robotics attitude scale, self-efficacy perception scale related to block-based programming and activity perception scale were used as data collection tools. The data were analyzed using the dependent samples t-test. The findings suggest that computational thinking skills level of students and their self-efficacy perception related to block-based programming increased significantly with the Scratch-based activities integrated into 5E learning model applied in science subjects. In addition, students have positive attitudes towards these activities. Thus, it is recommended to apply Scratch-based coding applications in teaching science subjects

Exploring the Learning Gains of Implementing Teacher Humanoid Robots in STEM Education: A Systematic Review

Εducational (or pedagogical) robotics has received increased attention over the last few years based on its effectiveness on the learning process. Humanoid robots have been recently introduced in school settings to mainly support teaching of curriculum-based subjects. However, humanoid robots’ benefits on STEM education in typical classroom settings are less examined by the research literature. Instead, most research studies take place in non-typical school or classroom settings (such as laboratories). The main goal of the current review is to sum up results of relevant research studies about the positive impact of teacher humanoid robots on STEM education. The learning benefits in STEM subjects, programming and reasoning skills are examined too. Sample subject of this review are mainstream students aged 4 to 18 years old and research studies are grouped based on their commonalities such as common learning areas and results

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Collaborative Robotics: More Than Just Working in Groups

The purpose of this study was to determine what collaborative interventions produce positive effects for students working on collaborative robotics projects for science process skills, collaborative problem solving, and learning motivation. In addition, the study examined the impact students’ prior robotics experience had on science process skills, collaborative problem solving, and learning motivation. The results indicated experience level and collaboration interventions can have impacts on students. Assigned Group Roles had positive effects on students’ motivation and collaborative problem solving. Experience level also had effects upon student learning motivation and collaborative problem solving with the Novice status associated with higher levels as compared with students who had more experience. A collaboration intervention was identified that has the potential to produce positive effects for students in collaborative robotics projects as well as assist classroom educators in the purposeful design of collaborative robotics projects with scientifically based strategies to improve the attitudinal outcomes for students of various robotics experience