Background: As one of the mainstream forms of programming education, educational robotics (ER) have been a crucial way to develop K-12 students' programming ability. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to clarify the content of programming ability, to verify the effectiveness of ER as a teaching method to improve students' programming…

Background: The pedagogy of computational thinking has gained extensive traction across numerous nations globally, with a particular emphasis on nurturing computational thinking in the formative years of early childhood. Nevertheless, the efficacy of diverse instructional approaches in the domain of programming education, with regards to fostering…

Geometric concepts are fundamental to early geometry education, and developmentally appropriate practices are crucial for teaching them to young children. Robotic coding is an effective tool in many areas of early mathematics and has significant potential in teaching geometric concepts. This study aimed to test the impact of a research-based…

We propose the results of a research that combines the educational and psychological media approach, to verify the pedagogical potential of coding and robotics in the learning processes of 4-year-old children at the cognitive and socio-relational level. The study investigated the impact of unplugged and plugged coding on the skills of spatiality,…

Nowadays, technology has become dominant in the daily lives of most people around the world. Technology is present from children to older people, helping in the most diverse daily tasks and allowing accessibility. However, many times these people are just end-users, without any incentive to develop computational thinking (CT). With advances in…

Programming has been considered a crucial "object to think with", which can integrate with various disciplines and facilitate learning in other areas. However, existing research primarily focuses on how children learn to code rather than how coding helps them to learn. To address this gap, a quasi-experimental case study was conducted…

The study's purpose was to examine the contribution of a programmable robot to an intervention program for promoting spatial ability (spatial relations, visual-memory, mental rotation) of preschool children. Eighty-four participants were randomly assigned to three intervention groups: programmable-robot-based intervention, traditional…

This study aims to examine the effect of augmented reality-assisted programming education supported by participatory design on the basic and computational thinking skills of preschoolers. In the study, a pretest-posttest single-group semi-experimental design, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The study group of the…

Coping with a virtual and abstract reality has become part of everyday life. Therefore, perceptions of what will constitute everyday life experiences for future generations are next to impossible to predict. One way of preparing young children for such a future is the implementation of teaching towards digital competence in curricula around the…

Programmable robotics is recently used in early childhood education (ECE) to introduce programming and computational thinking (CT) skills. However, there is a further need for research to contrast the efficacy of children's participation in robot programming and traditionally beneficial ECE activities. The present study thus investigated the…

In this study we analysed what computational thinking skills pupils used when programming a small robot to solve a given problem, a simple programming task in which pupils had to select codes and put them in the correct place. Computational thinking is the process of (re)formulating a problem so that it becomes possible to use computer technology…

This paper examined the effect of the Unplugged Programming Teaching Aids (UPTA) on students' computational thinking and classroom interaction. A set of UPTA was created and used in a primary school in southern China. A total of 48 students aged 6-8 were assigned to two classes, with the same instructor and learning materials, but only the…

Programming activities have the potential to provide a rich context for exploring measurement units in early elementary mathematics. This study examines how a small group of young children (ages 5-6) express their emergent conception of a dynamic linear unit and the measurement concepts they found challenging. Video of an introductory programming…

The study aims to compare the effect of a structured versus an unstructured educational robotics (ER) curriculum on (a) the frequency and type of programming errors made by students in block-based programming, (b) their ability to debug a programme, and (c) their engagement in the learning process. The authors' hypothesis is that, in programming…

Coding ability has become an essential digital skill for young children. The graphical programming environment is valuable carrier for cultivating children's coding ability. The purpose of this study is to develop a coding ability test for children, to conduct a graphic coding intervention, and to further explore the impact of multiple factors on…