The influence of robotic assisted programming education on problem solving skills, academic success and motivation

The aim of this study is to study the influence of robotic assisted programming education on students' problem solving skills, academic success and motivation. In this context, supported by qualitative data, pre-test post-test control grouped quasi-experimental design one of quantitative research methods, was used in this research. Study group of the research is composed of 50 university students who continue their education in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies in Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University College of Education and who the the programming languages I course during 2016-2017 academic year fall semester. 25 of students were chosen in the experimental group and the 25 of them were added in control group through random assignment. In the experimental group, in the robotic assisted programming learning, robotic programming language education was practised with LEGO® Mindstorms EV3 education set. In the control group, basic C programming education was practised. Within this scope of research that lasted for 8 weeks, lesson plans including the activities of ROBOTC programming language with LEGO® Mindstorms EV3 education set for the experimental group was developed. In the direction of the research objective data was collected by the achievement test developed by the researcher, Education Material Motivation Scale developed by Keller (1993) and adapted for Turkish by Acar (2009), by Problem Solving Inventory developed by Heppner and Peterson (1982) and Heppner (1988) adapted for Turkish by Şahin, Şahin and Heppner (1993) and by semi-structured interview forms and student reflective journals. Qualitative data were analyzed with NVivo 8 software using content analysis technique. In the analysis of the quantitative data SPSS 22.0 package programme was used. Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon signed rank test, Independent Sample t-test and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) which were used in the analysis of the data collected throughout the research were identified according to their normality assumptions. Following the analysis carried out influence quantity was calculated and significant differences gathered were interpreted as influence quantity. After the completion of data analysis qualitative and quantitative data were studied and discussed comparingly. According to the result of the analysis, problem solving skill levels of the students who took part in the research and pre-experiment and post-experiment grades of the students in the experimental group were statistically high in a meaningful and positive way. Furthermore, it was understood that there was a significant difference in the students' pre-test and post-test scores related to their academic levels in experimental group and also in control group and finally between the groups' corrected academic achievement post-test scores. In addition, there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups regarding the motivation levels in favor of the experimental group. According to analysis results of the qualitative data, there were positive opinions about the robotic assisted programming language with LEGO® Mindstorms EV3 as it was intriguing, entertaing and funny and it was individually efficent and interesting also it was seen as an up-to date issue especially for modernisation, and finally it was stated that the learning tool was understandable and had the potential for developing different skills. At the end of the practice process, it was identified that robotic assisted programming language education with LEGO® Mindstorms EV3 was an entertaining training process which increases motivation, develops problem solving skills, increases academic success especially because it has the possiblity for seeing the results of practice on an object. Thanks to qualitative opinions prejudices and fear of failure of the students who never experienced programming before was broken down. At the end of the research recommendations on research and practice were given.