Investigating K-2 students' computational thinking skills during a problem-solving activity about the water cycle using educational robotics

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to investigate K-2 children's development of computational thinking skills through an activity with Blue-Bot, a floor programmable robot. Twenty children between six and seven years old participated in the study. Children were engaged in problem-solving activities with the Blue-Bot to learn how to program it and about the water cycle. The results of the study reported statistically significant learning gains between the initial and final assessment of children's computational thinking skills as they were measured holistically with a rubric that was developed for the purposes of this study. In addition, the results showed that learning with robotics activities was an effective way to teach children about the water cycle.