Educational Robotics Intervention to Foster Computational Thinking in Preschoolers: Effects of Children's Task Engagement

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT) is a broadly used term in education to refer to the cognitive processes underlying the application of computer science concepts and strategies of problem-solving. Recent literature has pointed out the value of children acquiring computational thinking skills (i.e., understanding and applying concepts, such as conditionals, iteration, or generalization), especially while learning STEM subjects. Robotics has been used as a tool to introduce computational thinking and STEM knowledge to children. As physical objects, robots have been proposed as developmentally appropriate for the early childhood setting, promoting motivation and allowing young learners to represent abstract ideas in a concrete setting. This study presents a novel educational robotics (ER) intervention using RoboTito, a robot programmable through tangible elements in its environment designed for kindergarteners. We used a quasi-experimental design with an active control group. In addition, we conducted a structured observation of the filmed material of the sessions to gather data on children's attention and motivation throughout the activities. Fifty-one children (male = 33; mean age = 66 months, SD = 5.49 months) attending level 5 (kindergarten) at a Uruguayan public school participated in the study. Children in our experimental condition participated in an intervention programming RoboTito using tangible elements, while children in our control condition played with the robot through sensory-motor activities using a remote control and did not engage in programming. Motivational and attentional factors were assessed through video-recorded sessions of the ER activities. Four trained observers blind to the experimental conditions participated in the coding. Children's interactions were assessed in four categories: task engagement, distractibility, oral participation, and objective fulfillment. Our results suggest children's task engagement mediated their gains in CT after the intervention; post-hoc Tukey contrasts revealed non-significant pre-test to post-test gains for the control and low engagement groups, and significant for the high engagement group. Overall, we conclude task engagement played a central role in children's learning gains and our robotics intervention was successful in promoting CT for engaged children. We discuss the practical implications of our results for early childhood education and developmentally appropriate ER targeted for young learners.

Keywords: cognitive development; computational thinking; early childhood; preschool; robotics; task engagement.

Figure 1

Main components of RoboTito.

Figure 2

Example of a group of children trying to solve one of the proposed challenges during the intervention with RoboTito.

Figure 3

Card configuration for programming the robot to do a continuous trajectory in a square shape. Numbered areas signal the LED lights in the robot, which signal the direction the robot will take after sensing each color card (In this case: if green to the right, if yellow forward, if red to the left, if blue backward).

Figure 4

Example of a task using the robot’s color sensors. This task is analogous to those presented in sessions 3 and 4. Taking into account the robot would be positioned in the way shown in Figure 3, the representation in (A) shows the setting arranged before asking children the following: “If we have these cards set and cannot move them, which card would we need, and where would we put it to reach our objective of the purple card?” (B) Shows the solution to this question using just one card in the correct position. (C) Shows a correct answer to reach its objective, albeit using more cards.

Figure 5

Children’s pre-test and post-test CT score for control and different levels of engagement in the experimental condition.

Figure 6

Children’s pre-test and post-test CT score for control and different levels of (A) objective fulfillment, (B) Oral participation during tasks, and (C) number of switches between ON-task state and OFF-task state in the experimental condition.