Rapid advances in science and engineering, and pervasive adoption of resulting technological products, are influencing every aspect of human living and fueling a growing demand for a workforce that is adequately prepared for the emerging occupations in STEM fields. Educating students for success in the modern technology-rich workplace requires…

The purpose of the current study is to examine the effect of adapting the engineering design process to robotic coding, STEM, and the nature of science applications on teachers' self-efficacy towards engineering education and attitudes towards robotic coding. A weak experimental design with a single-group pre-test and post-test, one of the…

Background: There is a well-known gender disparity in the engineering field. Three of the most important factors related to the participation of women in engineering are differences in perceived societal relevance, technical self-efficacy, and tinkering self-efficacy. Purpose/Hypothesis: Soft robotics is a relatively new engineering application…

Contribution: Prior studies have shown that project-based learning (PBL) is an effective approach on engineering education. This study further identifies the impact of a design thinking (DT) integrated PBL approach on the college students' learning motivation and creativity. Background: A well-developed robot and its project often require…

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of robotic design with Arduino on students' attitudes towards programming and on their perceptions of self-efficacy in programming. The study group consisted of 25 sophomore students attending the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies in a state university located in the…

This exploratory case study reports findings on 20 middle-level science and mathematics teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of a one-year project in which teachers engaged in using robotics and engineering design inquiries in their classrooms. Principled by Bandura's Social Learning Theory (SLT) and using mixed methods approaches, the study…

Engineering career interest, especially that of young women, declines as they approach high-school graduation. We used expectancy-value theory, which emphasizes expectations for success and subjective value of experiences as antecedent factors to choice, as a framework for investigating new 9th grade soft robot design lessons. Compared to…

This mixed methods study examined how engagement in robotics and game design influenced students' self-efficacy, STEM attitudes, and computational thinking (CT) skills. Predominantly African-American students engaged in engineering and computer science tasks during informal learning environments. Results revealed students' self-efficacy scores on…

This article examines teacher preparation and teacher change in engineering and computer science education. We examined culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE), culturally responsive teaching outcome expectancy (CRTOE) beliefs, and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT) as teachers participated in one of three treatment groups:…

This paper describes the findings of a pilot study that used robotics and game design to develop middle school students' computational thinking strategies. One hundred and twenty-four students engaged in LEGO® EV3 robotics and created games using Scalable Game Design software. The results of the study revealed students' pre-post self-efficacy…

The aim of the study was to present the effect of Lego Mindstorms Ev3 based design activities on students' attitudes towards learning computer programming, self-efficacy beliefs and levels of academic achievement. The research is a pretest-posttest with control group semi-experimental study. The study group of the research consisted of 53 students…

This research report presents the results of a STEM summer program on robotics and game design. The program was part of a three-year study funded by the National Science Foundation. Children in grades four through six participated in a two-week summer camp in 2015 to learn STEM by engaging in LEGO® EV3 robotics and computer-based games using…