The effect of educational robotics coding activities with fairy tales on 21st century skills and scientific process skills of preschool students

Today, with the advancement of technological developments, individuals need to acquire some skills in order to adapt to these developments. These skills are called 21st century skills. 21st century skills need to be acquired from an early age and it is thought in the literature that these skills can be provided through coding education. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of educational robotic coding activities using fairy tales on students' 21st century skills. In this study sequential explanatory design, one of the mixed method research designs, was used. The quantitative dimension of the research includes experimental and control groups of 35 students each The coding education of the control group was carried out with coding activities on paper, while Lego WeDo sets were used in the experimental group. The independent variable of the study was coding education, and the dependent variables were critical thinking skills, creativity skills, scientific process skills and coding skills. In the study, the "Critical Thinking Skills Test for 5-6 Year Old Children" developed by Tozduman Yaralı (2019) was used to measure the critical thinking skills that students could develop during the coding activities. The "Early Childhood Creativity Scale" developed by Kay Bennet Shanahan (1988) and adapted into Turkish by Çeliköz (2017) was used to measure students' creativity skills. In order to measure the skills that students can develop during the research period, the "Scientific Process Skills Scale (SPSS)" developed by Kavak (2020) was used. The "Early Childhood Coding Skills Assessment Test" developed by Kalyenci (2021) was used to measure the coding skills that students could develop during the research. The implementation process lasted 8 weeks. When the experimental process was completed, an open-ended interview form consisting of 7 questions was developed by the researcher and conducted to the 4 teachers who constituted the qualitative dimension of the study. Interviews were conducted with teachers and the interview results were analyzed using Nvivo. Statistical analysis of the quantitative data was performed using SPSS (Statistical Packege for Social Sciences) program. As a result of the study, it was observed that coding education with fairy tales had a positive effect on preschool students' creativity skills, critical thinking skills, scientific process skills and coding skills. At the same time, as a result of interviews with teachers, it was concluded that students enjoyed learning with fairy tales and that using robotic sets increased students' participation and motivation in the lesson.