The effects of arduino use on academic achievements of and on attitudes towards computer programming of high school students

In today's world, where technological developments are advancing rapidly, it is needed to individuals who can produce creative solutions for the problems encountered in daily life. This situation revealed the importance of providing algorithmic thinking education which provides quick and easy solution by dividing the problems into steps. For this reason, from an early age programming education based on algorithmic thinking is taught in the schools. Correct determination of the materials and teaching methods to be used in programming education is important in order to be successful in achieving the goals of the course. In addition, impact of the methods, techniques and materials used in these trainings on the academic achievement of the students is a important issue for educators. In this thesis, in order to help the high school students to overcome the difficulties encountered while learning the basics of programming, an 8-week Arduino based instruction was conducted and the effect of this course on students' academic achievement and programming attitudes was examined. Firstly, the importance of programming and the problems encountered were explained and robotic courses were designed with Arduino in order to achieve the goals determined in the curriculum of the Ministry of National Education. Academic achievement test and attitude scale towards programming were developed as data collection tools. These instruments were applied to the study groups consisting of experimental and control groups before and after the experimental procedure and the data were collected and analyzed. Repeated ANOVA method was used for data analysis too. The results of the study showed that there was a positive increase in academic achievement between experimental group students taking robotics course and control group students who did not take the course. In addition, viii according to the results of the permanency test applied to students after four weeks of robotic education is interrupted, it can be said that the teaching performed is permanent. There was no significant difference in as for the attitude towards programming between the two groups. Keywords: Arduino, programming attitude scale, academic achievement test, robotic programming course