The effect of robotic coding education on preschoolers’ problem solving and creative thinking skills

Highlights

• Robotics and coding instruction has provided statistically significant contribution to preschoolers’ problem-solving skills compared to the pen and paper activities.

• Imagination and originality factors in the language domain as well as completion, new elements addition, and unconventionality factors in the drawing domain were found to be statistically significant compared to the other factors.

• According to the results of this study, there is evidence to suggest that considering the technological era in which we live, these kinds of robotics and coding activities should be integrated into preschoolers’ curriculum.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of robotics and coding instruction on preschoolers’ problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities. Designed as a quasi-experimental research with pretest–posttest control groups, this study was conducted in a preschool in Amasya province of Turkey. A total of 40 preschool students were recruited in this study. The data were collected through ‘the Problem-Solving Skill Scale (PSSS)’ and ‘the Creative Thinking Abilities Test’. The experimental procedure lasted for four weeks, and a total of 32 -h lesson was conducted. During the procedure in the experimental group, WeDo 2.0 Educational Robotics Kit was employed, while pen and paper activities were conducted in the control group. The participants in the experimental group performed ‘GlowingSnail’, ‘Moovingsatellite’, ‘Spacecraft’, ‘Milo Science’, ‘Milo’s Motion Sensory Robot’, and ‘Frog Robot’ activities, whereas those in the control group read such stories as ‘Winnie the Witch under the Sea’, ‘Where Do Emotions and Broken Hearts Go’, ‘the Aliens Activity’, and ‘Timing, and listened to ‘the Planets’ song. The results show that robotics and coding instruction has provided statistically significant contribution to preschoolers’ problem-solving skills compared to the pen and paper activities. Further, imagination and originality factors in the language domain as well as completion, new elements addition, and unconventionality factors in the drawing domain were found to be statistically significant compared to the other factors. Several limitations and recommendations are provided.

Introduction

Recently, a number of organizations have put their efforts to determine what basic life skills are of great importance for students in educational environments, and thus a plethora of research has been conducted. These skills have been commonly called as 21st century skills, and a basic frame for these skills has been attempted to be designed. At this point, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) considered twenty-first century skills as transformative ones and classified them into three categories: Creating new value (being able to develop new perspectives), reconciling tensions and dilemmas (being able to think in a systematic way), as well as taking responsibility (self-regulation, self-efficacy, self-control, and problem-solving) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), 2018, p.5).

Having been designed by the study group including different organizations and institutions in the United States of America (Partnership for 21st Century Skills [P21]) to define the competencies that students need for their lives and professions (Voogt & Roblin, 2012), the competencies and skills framework, upon which are also agreed (Brown, 2018; Lamb, Maire, & Doecke, 2017; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009) can be listed as follows: Learning and Innovation Skills (creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving, communication, collaboration), Key Subjects and 21st Century Themes (global awareness, entrepreneurship, citizenship, health and environmental literacy), Information, Media and Technology Skills (information, media, ICT literacies), and Life and Career Skills (flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility) (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2015).

In order for educational stakeholders to be able to use technology in education, several standards in six categories have been defined by International Society for Technology in Education National Educational Technology Standards (International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), 2020) as follows: Creativity, Communication and Collaboration, Research Skills, Critical Thinking, Problem-solving and Decision-Making, Digital Citizenship and Technology Operations and Concepts Skills. Further, a new one, the Computational Thinking Skill has been added to this classification. Apart from these efforts, there have also been some other classifications, such as the Turkish Qualifications Framework (Talim Terbiye Kurulu Başkanlıgı [TTKB], 2017) and Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills Framework (ATSC21) (Voogt & Roblin, 2012) as well as those by National Research Council (National Research Council (NRC), 2011), Iowa Core (2007), American Association of Colleges and Universities (American Association of Colleges & Universities (AACU), 2007), The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) (EnGauge, 2003). When these competencies are compared, it can be seen that collaboration, communication, citizenship and ICT are the common themes in all frameworks, whereas innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving and productivity are mostly included ones (Voogt & Roblin, 2012). In other words, ICT skills are one of the common themes, and problem-solving skill is one of the noticed skills.

Flynn (1989) argues that problem-solving skill is a prerequisite for learning process and conceptualizes the cognitive operations starting from recognition of a problem by children to finding a solution as problem-solving process. During this process, children get on with the solution of a problem while they attempt to provide a solution. Thus, problem-solving process may successfully be completed (Robertson, 2001). Treffinger, Selby, and Isaksen (2008) define the problem-solving process as a thinking behavior displayed for solving a problem by children. Shewchuk, Johnson, and Elliott (2000), on the other hand, construe this process as a skill by which children can determine the components of a problem through their experiences and cope with the problem.

Preschool is of great importance for development of children’s problem-solving skills and preschoolers begin solving their own problems when they involve in preschool education (Oguz & Koksal-Akyol, 2015). Murray (1990) suggests that the main concern of the preschool education is to develop problem-solving skills of children. In this sense, involving children in problem-solving process as they get older is essential for them to be able to be aware of their developments (Bingham, 2004; Mountrose, 2000). Zembat and Unutkan (2005) note that developing problem-solving skills of children is of utmost importance in terms of their adaptation to daily circumstances, and suggest that they can develop their problem-solving skills through problem-solving experiences.

Carin and Bass (2001) note that scientific inquiry skills, considered as the main component of thinking, are used in problem-solving process. Further, one of these cognitive process skills is the creative thinking skill, as well. Children’s ability to find novel solutions for problems also depends on their creativity skills. According to Mertoglu and Oztuna (2004), creativity is a problem-solving skill, namely a thinking process. An individual can gain creativity skill when novel solutions are found for the problems encountered and new networks are built (Koyuncuoglu, 2017). Similarly, Fisher (2005) defines creativity thinking as a thinking process that is adaptable to life, as well. In this sense, it would be useful to evaluate problem-solving skill and creative thinking skill together.

Previous research has shown that such methods as social problem-solving skills (Mulrey, 2017), structured or unstructured gaming activities (Karayol, 2016; McCaslin, 2002), brainstorming (Yigitalp, 2014), project-based education (Oğuz, 2012) are employed to boost children’s problem-solving skills. On the other hand, kinesthetic modality (movement activities) (Zachopoulou, Trevlas, & Konstadinidou, 2006), painting and craft activities (Samavi & Sajjadi, 2015), video-based activities (Subbotsky, Hysted, & Jones, 2010), gaming activities (Rogers, 1984), project-based teaching (Gizir-Ergen, 2013), and drama (Erkan, 2005) are used for developing children’s creative thinking abilities. However, more recently robotics and coding instruction, commonly preferred in primary and secondary education, has been used as a teaching technique in preschool education. Robotics and coding activities add much to problem-solving and creativity thinking skills as well as digital citizenship and ICT skills included as twenty-first century skills. At this precise point, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that these kind of activities can contribute to preschoolers, as well. This is because coding itself is a problem-solving process. Therefore, it is closely linked to such high level cognitive skills as problem-solving, rational and mathematical thinking, critical thinking, and creative thinking (Atun & Usta, 2019; Korkmaz & Altun, 2014; Fang, 2012; Korkmaz, 2012; Lau & Yuen, 2011; Wang, Li, Feng, Jiang, & Liu, 2012). However, coding is a complex and abstract process and therefore it may be difficult to teach and learn. For this reason, it is seen that different learning platforms have recently been developed for coding education. These platforms are educational coding kits which have visual programming interfaces such as WeDo, Lego, Bee-bot, Clementino, and Robokids. The fact that these robotics coding kits are easy to use and children consider them funny make teaching and learning process more enjoyable and more useful.

In the literature, studies show that preschoolers are able to design, build and program robots (Sullivan & Bers, 2016; Sullivan, Kazakoff, & Bers, 2013). Robotics education develops language skills (Kory & Breazeal, 2014), cognitive/motor skills (Poletz, Encarnação, Adams, & Cook, 2010), geometric thinking skills (Keren & Fridin, 2014), scientific process skills (Turan & Aydogdu, 2020), visual-spatial working memory, and robot programming abilities (Di Lieto et al., 2017). Moreover, preschoolers enjoy using educational coding kits (Fridin, 2014) and these tools encourage them to explore (He et al., 2017). On the other hand, there is a gap in the literature in terms of the contribution of robotics and coding instruction on preschoolers’ problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities even though there has been a growing body of research on its effect on primary and secondary level students’ problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities. According to the results of an experimental study, classical coding education without robotic kits developed non-verbal cognitive abilities but had no difference in problem-solving skills (Ciftci & Bildiren, 2020). Considering the potential of educational robotic kits, they are likely to boost problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities at preschool level. Further, given their potential for digital citizenship and ICT skills, new inquiries are believed to provide important implications to the literature. In this regard, this research is an attempt to determine the effect of robotics and coding instruction on preschoolers’ problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities.

The main research problem of the study is ‘What effect do the robotics and coding instruction have on problem-solving skills and creative thinking abilities of preschoolers?’. In line with this, these questions framed the study:

1. Do the robotics and coding instruction contribute to problem-solving skills of preschoolers? 2. Do the robotics and coding instruction contribute to creative thinking abilities of preschoolers?