Investigation of the effect of educational robot applications on students' cognitive outcomes towards coding

As in many disciplines, the field of education follows the recent technological developments. With the technological developments, new approaches and trends have appeared in the field of education. The usage of technological devices in education area became more common thanks to the usage of picture oriented books, photos, and the concept of black boards in 19th century. New approaches in the field of education were suggested with the aim of raising individuals that have the requirements of 21st century such as being enterprising and being able to both read and write about technology. One of these approaches is the ''Lego Based Educational Practises''. The purpose of this study is to reveal the effects of Lego Based Educational Game Practices on students skills regarding to academic motivation based on problem solving, reflective thinking, spatial visualization and cognitive thinking abilities. This study is conducted on 26 6th grader students, who are studying in a private secondary school in Amasya, within the content of the course which is named 'Information Technologies and Software course'' in 2018-2019 educational term. During the study, pre-test, post-test and quasi experimental design including a control group methods were used. While the experimental group students took the course with the lego based educational practices, the control group took the course with 'the Stratch. At the start and in the end of the study, as pre-tests and post-tests, ''Reflective Thinking Ability Scale devoted to Problem Solving'' which is developed by Kızılkaya and Aşkar (2009), ''Academic Motivation Scale-AMS'' which is adapted into English by Vallerand and his company (1992), ''Spatial Visuliazition'' which is developed by Winter, Lappan, Philips and Fitzgerald (1989) and prepared for ''Middle Grades Mathematics Project'' which was done for II. Grade in USA ; Mental Rotation Test Scale which is reshaped in the content of study titled ''A redrawn Vanderberg and Kuse Mental Rotations Test: Different Versions and Factors That Affect Performance'' by Peters and et al. (1995) are applied. It is observed in the end of the study that there are differences by means of measured specialities within the groups. At the same time, it is observed that the students who took the course with the Lego Based Educational Practices positively developed their problem solving intended reflective thinking, spatial visualization and cognitive rethinking skills; while, the students who took the course with Scratch program positively developed their spatial visualization and cognitive rethinking skills. In the light of the findings obtained at the end of this study, the application of this practice on different graders for a longer term is suggested.