The Effect of STEM-based Robotic Coding Activities on Gifted Students’ Attitudes towards Coding

Creative Commons License

Okuşluk F., Avcı E., Yıldırım B.

Eğitim Kuram ve Uygulama Araştırmaları Dergisi (EKUAD), cilt.2, sa.7, ss.228-235, 2021 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Advances in science and technology are always integrated into education. One example of that integration is STEM, which is a multidisciplinary learning approach involving Science (S), Technology (T), Engineering (E), and Mathematics (M). It is also an educational tool that helps students develop 21st-century skills, including coding. This paper investigated the effect of STEM-based robotic coding activities on gifted students’ attitudes towards coding. The sample consisted of 34 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade gifted students from the Malatya Science and Art Center affiliated to the Malatya Provincial Directorate of National Education in the 2019-2020 academic year. All participants attended the third “Young Engineers with STEM” event. This quantitative study adopted a one-group pretest-posttest experimental design. Participants attended STEM-based robotic coding activities for a week. Data were collected using the Attitude Scale Towards Coding for Secondary School Students (ASTC) as a pretest and posttest. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) at a significance level of 0.05. Participants had significantly higher posttest ASTC scores than pretest scores [p= 0,01 ; p<0,05]. The results showed that the STEM-based robotic coding activities helped participants develop more positive attitudes towards coding.