Examination of the topic of robotic coding in accordance with the opinions of graduate theses and dissertation consultants

In the century in which we live in the age of science and technology, it is of great importance to closely follow the technological developments. In this study, master's and doctoral theses written on robotic coding, which is a rapidly developing field in the world and can be considered as new in our country, were examined. The theses examined in the quantitative part of the research, which was designed as a mixed method, were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. In the qualitative part, interviews were made with the thesis advisors and the data obtained were analyzed by content analysis. 90 theses were reached by scanning with the words "robot, robotics, coding, robotic coding, lego and programming" on the National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education. Theses were examined according to criteria such as genre, year of publication, university, branch of science, sample size, class level, methods used, analysis methods and robotic products used. In the interview with the thesis advisors, questions were asked about the criteria examined and quantitative data were supported. According to the results obtained, the most theses were published in 2019 between January 2016 and December 21. The number of master's theses between the specified dates is 5 times more than doctoral theses. Only one of these theses was written in English. Considering the other departments, the most theses were written in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies. In the studies, mostly quantitative method and pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with or without control group were used. The studies were mostly conducted with middle school group students. The sample size ranged from 30-100. The most frequently preferred time intervals in the experimental application periods in the theses prepared with the experimental research model were 5 and 8 weeks. Arduino and Lego Mindstorms Ev3 sets were mostly preferred in theses. Scales and semi-structured interview forms were frequently used as data collection tools in theses. In the theses published in the field of robotic coding, a certain method and working group were generally preferred. Within the framework of the data obtained from the interview, it was stated that robotic coding absolutely needs a curriculum, that there is no specific instructional design at the moment, and that qualitative and fully experimental studies should be included in future studies. In addition, it was stated that the "media" feature of robotic coding is at the forefront in our country and the meaning loaded on it is not fully met. It has been determined that the pandemic period has a negative impact on the number and quality of theses.