A Study of the Impact of Arduino and Visual Programming In Self-Efficacy, Motivation, Computational Thinking and 5th Grade Students’ Perceptions on Electricity

Abstract

This article presents a quasi-experiment which, with the use of Arduino and Scratch for Arduino (S4A), attempts to study their effect on self-efficacy and motivation towards Science Education, Computational Thinking (CT) and the views of 5th Grade students about concepts of electricity. It was conducted on the 5th Grade of a Primary School in Greece. The research team chose the quantitative method, which was conducted through the delivery of four questionnaires that were mainly consisted of close-ended questions. In order to achieve triangulation and a deeper understanding of the topic, it was considered important to include individual open interviews. The data processing failed to prove the effect on motivation, while in self-efficacy it was proved only partially. However, the effect was explicit in view of the conceptual understanding of electricity and CT. The specific project could spur the prosecution of an extended research, aiming at the probe on the one hand of how the existing outcome is confirmed and on the other hand how they are preserved through time, for the purpose of insinuating computational methods and tools into primary education.