Should We Use Educational Robots to Introduce Students to Computational Thinking? Insights From Two Experimental Studies

摘要

ABSTRACT 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.