Authors:
Nada Sharaf
1
;
Ghada Ahmed
2
;
Omnia Ashraf
2
and
Walid Ahmed
2
Affiliations:
1
The German International University, Egypt
;
2
The German University in Cairo, Egypt
Keyword(s):
Computational Thinking, Robotics, Programming for Children, Educational Robots.
Abstract:
Nowadays, technology is fundamental in almost every aspect of our lives. Our daily life is endowed with many devices as mobiles, laptops, televisions that depend solely on technology. Therefore, Computational Thinking is growing faster into a form of an imperative literacy that needs to be learnt by young children as well as Programming in order for them to be more prepared for the future. From an educational point of view, it is very essential to improve and develop computational thinking and problem algorithmic-solving skills of young students. This study investigates how successfully small kids between 7-11 years old can comprehend and use basic programming concepts. Through this study, children have to learn three major programming concepts (sequential, conditional, iteration) by using a robot in a maze game that targets these concepts. The robot has a voice recognition feature that can easily be used by children to direct the robot out of the maze by using the three different pr
ogramming approaches. The experiment has 36 participants, then by means of a “between-group experiment”, the participants have been divided into two groups. One of which has learnt the concepts by using the robot to test the game (Experimental Group) while the other has learnt the concepts by using the traditional methods of teaching (Control Group). The results of testing the learning processes between the two groups have been compared and reported regarding the learning gain, engagement level and system usability scale. The experiment has proved that the group who uses the robot has achieved significantly better learning gain and better engagement than the group who has been taught by explaining the concepts on a paper. Accordingly, using an educational robot is considered to be an effective and operative method for teaching young children the basics of programming and computational thinking.
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