Liu Yan, Odic Darko, Tang Xuyan, Ma Andy, Laricheva Maria, Chen Guanyu, Wu Sirui, Niu Man, Guo Yue, Milner-Bolotin Marina
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, B546 Loeb | 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 Canada.
Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada.
J Sci Educ Technol. 2023;32(3):295-308. doi: 10.1007/s10956-023-10028-1. Epub 2023 Mar 7.
The emerging field of robotics education (RE) is a new and rapidly growing subject area worldwide. It may provide a playful and novel learning environment for children to engage with all aspects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning. The purpose of this research is to examine how robotics learning activities may affect the cognitive abilities and cognitive processes of 6-8 years old children. The study adopted the mixed methods approach with a repeated measures design; three waves of data collection over 6 months, including quantitative data obtained from cognitive assessments and eye-tracking, and qualitative data from the interviews. A total of 31 children were recruited from an afterschool robotics program. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first RE research that used a combination of eye-tracking, cognitive assessments, and interviews for examining the effect of RE on children. Using linear growth models, the results of cognitive assessments showed that children's visuospatial working memory as well as logical and abstract reasoning skills improved over time. The interview data were analyzed by a thematic analysis. The results revealed that children perceived RE activities as game play, which made children more engaged in their study; parents found their children to be more focused on activities comparing to six months ago. Additionally, the visualization of the eye-tracking data suggested that children became more focused on RE activities and got faster to process the information across six months in general, which echoed the findings in assessments and interviews. Our findings may help educators and policymakers better understand the benefits of RE for young children.
新兴的机器人教育领域（RE）在全球范围内是一个新的且迅速发展的学科领域。它可能为孩子们提供一个有趣且新颖的学习环境，使其参与到科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学习的各个方面。本研究的目的是考察机器人学习活动如何影响6至8岁儿童的认知能力和认知过程。该研究采用了混合方法，采用重复测量设计；在6个月内进行三轮数据收集，包括从认知评估和眼动追踪获得的定量数据，以及来自访谈的定性数据。共有31名儿童从一个课外机器人项目中招募而来。据我们所知，本研究是第一项将眼动追踪、认知评估和访谈相结合来考察机器人教育对儿童影响的机器人教育研究。使用线性增长模型，认知评估结果表明，儿童的视觉空间工作记忆以及逻辑和抽象推理能力随时间推移有所提高。访谈数据通过主题分析进行分析。结果显示，孩子们将机器人教育活动视为游戏，这使他们在学习中更投入；家长们发现他们的孩子与六个月前相比，在活动中更加专注。此外，眼动追踪数据的可视化表明，总体而言，孩子们在六个月里对机器人教育活动变得更加专注，处理信息的速度也更快，这与评估和访谈中的结果相呼应。我们的研究结果可能有助于教育工作者和政策制定者更好地理解机器人教育对幼儿带来得益处。
