Measuring the Impact on Student's Computational Thinking Skills Through STEM and Educational Robotics Project Implementation

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors present their research on how P12 students apply computational thinking (CT) skills when they are assigned simple science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) problems, which they are called upon to solve with the help of educational robotics (ER) activities. The reason for this research was the high participation and increased interest shown in an ER event, where distributed questionnaires recorded students' views on ER, STEM, and CT. Their answers were the spark to conduct a pilot study on primary school students in the form of an experiential seminar to investigate the possibility of developing their CT skills by applying ER activities when they are asked to solve authentic STEM problems. The results showed that students may develop CT skills when involved in ER activities and that educational robots enhance students' engagement with programming and create a more favorable environment for developing students' CT skills.