The Development of Computational Thinking in Student Teachers through an Intervention with Educational Robotics

Aim/Purpose This research aims to describe and demonstrate the results of an intervention through educational robotics to improve the computational thinking of student teachers. Background Educational robotics has been increasing in school classrooms for the development of computational thinking and digital competence. However, there is a lack of research on how to prepare future teachers of Kindergarten and Elementary School in the didactic use of computational thinking, as part of their necessary digital teaching competence. Methodology Following the Design-Based Research methodology, we designed an intervention with educational robots that includes unplugged, playing, making and remixing activities. Participating in this study were 114 Spanish university students of education. Contribution This research helps to improve the initial training of student teachers, especially in the field of educational robotics. Findings The student teachers consider themselves digital competent, especially in the dimensions related to social and multimedia aspects, and to a lesser extent in the technological dimension. The results obtained also confirm the effectiveness of the intervention through educational robotics in the development of computational thinking of these students, especially among male students. Recommendations for Practitioners Teacher trainers could introduce robotics following these steps: (1) initiation and unplugged activities, (2) gamified activities of initiation to the programming and test of the robots, (3) initiation activities to Scratch, and (4) design and resolution of a challenge. Recommendation for Researchers Researchers could examine how interventions with educational robots helps to improve the computational thinking of student teachers, and thoroughly analyze gender-differences. Impact on Society Computational thinking and robotics are one of the emerging educational trends. Despite the rise of this issue, there are still few investigations that systematize and collect evidence in this regard. This study allows to visualize an educational intervention that favors the development of the computational thinking of student teachers. Future Research Researchers could evaluate not only the computational thinking of student teachers, but also their didactics, their ability to teach or create didactic activities to develop computational thinking in their future students