The Effects of a Robotics Program on Preschool-Students

The Effects of a Robotics Program on Preschool-Students' Creative Thinking Skills

Gamze SİPER KABADAYI & Duygu SÖNMEZ

ABSTRACT
Robotics education is considered a valuable tool for development of cognitive and interpersonal skills. It is highly valued as a part of STEM education as it allows a collaborative learning environment that supports skills such as creativity, critical thinking, algorithmic thinking and problem solving. Considering the value of robotics education, a robotics program was developed using the STEM framework. This study investigates the effects of this STEM-based educational robotics program on preschool students' creative thinking skills. A mixed design approach was utilized for the study. The Torrance Creative Thinking Test was used before and after the program as well as one-on-one semi-structured interviews to investigate students’ creative thinking. Results of the study suggests that the participants' creative thinking general scores and fluency subscale scores increased statistically significantly. In addition, it has been observed that students were able to establish relationships between concepts during the program and reflected algorithmic thinking skills in their designs.

KEYWORDS: STEM education, educational robotics, early childhood education, creative thinking skills, algorithmic thinking skills

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