The effect of project-based Arduino educational robot applications on students' computational thinking skills and their perception of basic STEM skill levels

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of project-based arduino educational robot applications on students' computational thinking skills and their perception of STEM skill levels. The study group of consists of sixth grade students from two different secondary schools. Within the scope of the research, classes were assigned to experimental and control groups neutrally. There are 15 students in the control group and 18 students in the experimental group. The experimental study continued for 11 weeks in both groups. In the experimental group, project-based arduino educational robot applications were applied to the students whereas in the control group, project development activities were carried out with block-based programming tool. The research data were collected by using the computer-based skill level scale (α = 0.809) and the Basic STEM Skill Levels scale (α = 940). The mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum, Mann-Withney U tests were used for independent measurements and Wilcoxon signed sequences for the associated measurements were performed on the collected data. At the end of the research, it was determined that activities based on block based robotic programming tool did not have a significant difference between both students' total scores of STEM skills and scores related to factors, but when computer based thinking skills were analyzed, it was found that it contributed significantly more than total score and problem solving factor based on block based programming tool.