Tengler, Karin: A robotics-based approach supporting computational thinking skills at primary school: Development of an interdisciplinary learning environment using educational robotics and storytelling. Dissertation, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, 2022

online: https://epub.jku.at/obvulihs/content/titleinfo/7823698

In an increasingly digital environment, interest in introducing computer literacy into the classroom has increased worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on promoting computational thinking to introduce young learners to problem-solving thinking and thus prepare them most effectively for everyday life and work. With the anchoring of computer science education (“Informatische Bildung”) as cross-curricular competence development in the next Austrian primary school curriculum, the research of suitable didactic approaches and the associated acceptance of the educators will become increasingly necessary. After all, transfer is one of the most significant challenges for implementing innovations and didactic approaches in the classroom. Educational robotics offers a possible approach to promote computational thinking because it provides access to real-life scenarios and age-appropriate opportunities to explore the students' living and working environments with programmable robots. However, since there is a lack of studies to provide teachers with feasible and easy-to-use concepts, this research project was initiated. The didactic design of the robotics-based learning environment presented in this thesis aims to facilitate the learning of programming in primary education and support the development of skills such as collaboration, creativity and problem-solving in a cross-curricular approach. An additional effect is provided by the storytelling activities used to promote students' reading and storytelling skills in the playful use of the programmable robots. As a methodological framework, the research approach of educational design research was chosen to investigate the design, development, and implementation of the robotics-based learning environment and its effect on computational thinking of primary school students. Studies were conducted with primary school students and teachers in three cycles, ranging from prototype development to acceptance research of the applied learning environment. In the course of the research project, as is common with the design-based approach, design principles were developed that are proposed to establish robotics-based learning environments that contribute to the promotion of computational thinking among primary school students. The second key finding of this research is the didactic design that emerged in the project, called the Tell, Draw & Code method, as it combines narrative, visual and programming language to develop computational thinking and introduce to problem-solving thinking. Results of the research show that the method contributes to great acceptance among teachers towards robotics-based applications in the classroom and to increasing learners' computational thinking skills. This thesis presented an educational design-based research study that contributes to the body of knowledge on interdisciplinary computer science teaching and the promotion of computational thinking in primary education. The findings are of theoretical and practical relevance to the educational field, as the design of robotics-based storytelling activities can be an appropriate approach for introducing computer science education that promotes reading, narrative, and programming skills in equal measure.