Abstract:
The aim of this study was to assess the familiarity and expectations of elementary school students from private and public schools regarding Educational Robotics, understood as an interdisciplinary, challenging, and playful teaching strategy, aimed at promoting the learning of curricular concepts. A sample of 161 students from 6th to 9th grades, aged between 10 and 17 years was used. The results indicated that the significant majority of students are of the opinion that (i) it is very relevant to have a laboratory dedicated to teaching Educational Robotics; (ii) they are highly motivated to learn new things; (iii) they are very curious to develop automata; (iv) they consider Robotics important for learning other curricular contents and to incentivize groupwork with classmates. Therefore, the introduction of Educational Robotics in teaching processes in “harder” areas and subjects will make it possible to increase student motivation, curiosity and learning of curriculum content in basic sciences.
Keywords:
Elementary School; Educational robotics; Educational assessment; Teaching and learning