Background: In the digital age, fostering young children's computational thinking (CT) and executive functions (EFs) through programming has emerged as a significant research issue. While unplugged programming activities are commonly adopted in preschools, robot programming activities have recently gained attention for the potential to enhance…

Background and Context: Computational thinking (CT) is a fundamental skill and a new form of literacy that everyone should develop to participate in civic society. Sequencing and algorithmic thinking are at the core of CT. This study looked into how young children enrolled in a kindergarten in Colombia develop CT skills. Objective: This paper aims…

The present pilot study outlines findings from a study that evaluated the efficacy of educational robots in enhancing children's cognitive skills and historical knowledge. Applying LEGO® Wedo 2.0, the study focused on typically developing nine-year-old students in a K-12 public school setting. The hypothesis posited that students using robotics…

The aim of this pilot study is to support the activity-based unplugged coding and robotic coding skills of children during their preschool period. A significant sample was chosen for this quantitative research. The study group consisted of 24 5-year-old children being educated in a State kindergarten under the Gaziantep Provincial Directorate of…

Background: The number of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy studies in K-12 education has recently increased, with most research focusing on primary and secondary education contexts. Little research focuses on AI literacy programs in early childhood education. Objectives: The aim of this mixed-methods study is to examine the feasibility of an…

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…

Recently, coding and robotics education has started to be integrated into early childhood education in Turkey. The current study aims to investigate the effects of "Productive Children: Coding and Robotics Education Program (PCP)" on children's cognitive development skills, language development and creativity. Eighty children, enrolled…

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,…

In this research, we explore the use of storybooks as an educational tool for fostering a meaningful understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for children and consider how AI should be depicted in storybook narratives to achieve this. We present guidelines for the depiction of AI in narratives for four- to six-year-old children…

Educational Robotics (ER) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) have entered schools and are parts of formal and informal education. Consequently, a wide range of relevant activities and interventions, from kindergarten to high school, are carried out emphasizing their potential benefits, in relation to traditional curriculum,…

Purpose: Much remains unknown about how young children orient to computational objects and how we as learning scientists can orient to young children as computational thinkers. While some research exists on how children learn programming, very little has been written about how they learn the technical skills needed to operate technologies or to…

This research explored if a social robot would play a role in facilitating the development of friendship between young children while they engage in playful learning. Grounded in child-robot interaction and child development literature, we instantiated four sessions of triadic interaction activities among two children and a robot, where the robot…

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…

This study investigated the impact of group interactions and structure, specifically gender, on achievement in elementary robotics classes. The research involved 103 's-grade (satisfactory grade)' students, using a mixed methods embedded design to observe interactions, conduct a robotics assessment, and analyze the data. Group processing, positive…

The purpose of this study was to explore how kindergarten students (aged 5-6 years) engaged with mathematics as they learned programming with robot coding toys. We video-recorded 16 teaching sessions of kindergarten students' (N = 36) mathematical and programming activities. Students worked in small groups (4-5 students) with robot coding toys on…