Pre-service and in-service teachers’ interest, knowledge, and self-confidence in using educational robotics in learning activities

Abstract

This paper presents a study that aims to analyze the interest, knowledge, problem-solving skills, and self-confidence of the pre-service and in-service teachers in using educational robotics for teaching purposes, in particular, to teach programming and computational thinking in primary and secondary education. In the portuguese context, it is mandatory to attend a masters in teaching in order to become a teacher in primary and secondary education. These pre-service teacher training programs are organized in several dimensions, such as specific didactics, general education, scientific area. Computational Thinking, programming, and robotics have been integrated into the schools’ curriculum in many countries. Accordingly, it is essential to analyze the teachers’ preparation to teach these thematic trends. A descriptive and exploratory quantitative approach was implemented with 49 participants. The results pointed out a positive level of interest, educational robotics knowledge, problem-solving, self-confidence of both pre-service and in-service teachers.