An evaluation of the 10th grade robotic coding curriculum (2020) within a participant oriented curriculum evaluation approach

The aim of this study is to evaluate the 10th grade robotic coding curriculum (2020) with a participant-oriented curriculum evaluation approach. This mixed method study was designed with simultaneous triangulation and the researcher developed a 32-item teacher opinion questionnaire, an 8-item student opinion questionnaire, a semi-structured teacher interview form and a semi-structured administrator interview form were used as data collection tools. In the quantitative dimension of the research, a questionnaire was applied to 60 Information Technologies field teachers working in vocational and technical secondary education institutions in Kuşadası, Söke and Efeler districts of Aydın province, 126 vocational and technical secondary education information technologies field students, and in the qualitative dimension, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 information technologies technical teachers and 5 administrators working in vocational and technical secondary education institutions whose field is information technologies. In the quantitative dimension of the study, the data were reported using descriptive statistics such as percentage, frequency, and average, while in the qualitative dimension, the data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method and as a result of the analysis, four categories (sub-themes), a total of 23 codes for teacher interviews and a total of 20 codes for administrator interviews were reached. According to the quantitative findings of the study, it was seen that the teachers' opinions about the overall robotic coding curriculum and the acquisition, content, and educational situations dimension were at the level of agree, while their opinions about the measurement and evaluation dimension were at the level of undecided. In addition, it was concluded that almost all of the teachers saw the lack of materials as the most important problem for the robotic coding course. As a result of the data obtained from the student questionnaires, it was concluded that the robotic coding course is sufficient to embody the logic of programming, the robotic coding course increases student interest in the field of information technologies, this course makes coding education enjoyable for students, and the application activities are suitable for the development of students. In the qualitative dimension of the research, as a result of the interviews with teachers and administrators, it was concluded that while there were no problems in the acquisition and content dimensions of the robotic coding curriculum, there were problems in the implementation of the curriculum at the point of realizing the achievements due to the inadequacy, costliness and inaccessibility of the materials in the educational situations and measurement-evaluation dimensions. Within the scope of the study, it is recommended to re-analyze the needs of the system in order to make the robotic coding curriculum more effective in practice, to eliminate the inadequacies in the functioning of the program and to maintain its strengths.