Preschool children, robots, and computational thinking: A systematic review

Abstract

We conducted a systematic review of empirical studies aimed at exploring robot-mediated activities to promote the development of computational thinking in preschoolers. In this study, we investigated the robots used, proposed activities, and evaluation processes. We also analyzed research contexts and the stated motivations to conduct the studies. Our review identified characteristics of the robots, such as input and output interfaces, cost, and availability. We also categorized activities considering context, modality of work, type of activities, duration, adults’ role, scaffolding, unplugged activities, explicit debugging, communication and sharing instances, and teaching knowledge from other domains. We analyzed the computational thinking evaluation process looking at types of assessments, asset concepts, and research design. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of existing research, identifies existing gaps, and provides recommendations for future studies.