The purpose of this convergent mixed-methods study was to evaluate the effect of educational robotics on pre-service teachers' programming comprehension and motivation. Computer science is increasingly being integrated into K-8 curricula. However, a shortage of teachers trained to teach basic computer science concepts remains unresolved. This…

Background/purpose: This research explores the use of robotics to facilitate the learning of computer programming among non-specialist pre-service teachers with no prior programming experience. With the increasing demand for 21st-century teaching competencies, it is essential to equip future educators with computational thinking (CT) skills, even…

Computer science is often integrated within early childhood education (ECE) through the use of educational robots. This requires adequate preparation of ECE teachers to program and debug, which can be done with scaffolding. In this paper, we use a QUANT + qual mixed method approach incorporating lag sequential analysis, ICAP framework coding,…

This article reports the analysis of data from five different studies to identify predictors of preservice, early childhood teachers' views of (a) the nature of coding, (b) integration of coding into preschool classrooms, and (c) relation of coding to fields other than computer science (CS). Significant changes in views of coding were predicted by…

This study investigated the effect of project-based Arduino robot application on students' computational thinking skills development in robotics programming course using the quasi-experimental research design. The participants consist of 73 students in tertiary institutions in South-East Nigeria that offer Computer and Robotics Education…

Computer science teaching standards for grades K-8 have been implemented in nearly all U.S. states, and the core subject area teachers (e.g., math, science, English, social studies) have been asked to integrate these standards into their instruction. Thus, it is important that K-8 pre-service teachers of all subjects are both prepared and…

This study aims to explore the usability of the virtual robotics programming curriculum (VRP-C) for robotics programming teaching. Pre-service computer science (CS) teachers were trained for robotics programming teaching by using VRP-C in a scientific education activity. After training, views of the participants were revealed by using a scale and…

The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the effect educational robotics have on the programming comprehension and motivation of preservice teachers. Computer science is increasingly being integrated into K-8 curricula across the country. However, there are few teachers trained to teach basic computer science concepts. Core subject…

The purpose of this study was to determine IT teacher candidates' attitudes, self-efficacy and opinions about educational robotic-based programming education. The participants of this study consisted of 2nd class students in Computer Education and Instructional Technologies department of a university in Turkey. The study group of the research…

The emphasis on programming and robotics owing to the unfolding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the African continent has led the South African National Department of Education to propose a new subject in Grades R to 9. Hence, the training and development of pre-service teachers is crucial so that they can respond to the skills needed in…

In this study, we investigated the debugging process that early childhood preservice teachers used during block-based programing. Its purpose was to provide insights into how to prepare early childhood teachers to integrate computer science into instruction. This study reports the types of errors that early childhood preservice teachers commonly…

While programming was introduced to mathematics classrooms in the 1980s, emerging robotic technologies have encouraged more widespread integration of these technologies to support the development of K-12 students' mathematical reasoning. The recent emphasis of programming and computational thinking in K-12 education has highlighted the need to…

When the needs of present and future life are examined, 21st-century skills are gaining importance day by day. There are various teaching methods, techniques and aids that support the development of individual skills and characteristics. Coding has also taken its place among these methods and techniques and continues to gain popularity with…

This study aims to analyze how pre-service informatics teachers design learning scenarios with robotics to teach programming fundamentals and to promote computational thinking skills. A descriptive and exploratory case study design was implemented with 26 pre-service informatics teachers. Data were collected from the participants using qualitative…

This article describes an introductory computational thinking (CT) lesson that was implemented into five educational technology classes at a large university in the southern United States. A total of 88 undergraduate and graduate students participated in the lesson. The project was the result of a collaboration between education faculty and a…