Effect of coding and robotic education on pre-school children’s skills of scientific process

This study was carried out with the aim of determining the effect of robotic coding education on pre-school children’s skills of scientific process. Study group consisted of 30 children aged five who studied in an independent kindergarten connected to Ministry of National Education in Refahiye district of Erzincan province in the first semester of 2017–2018 academic year and 15 of them were in the experiment group and other 15 of them were included in the control group. In the study, experimental design with pre-test, post-test and control groups was used. “Scale for Preschool Students’ Basic Skills” developed by Aydogdu and Karakus ( Kuramsal Eğitimbilim Dergisi , 10 (1), 49-72, 2017 ) was applied to both experiment and control group before and after the education. After applying the pre-test to the students in the experiment group, “Coding and Robotic Education Program”, which consisted of 16 sessions, was also applied to them during eight weeks, two days a week and an hour a day. No programs were applied to the control group and they continued their education in their own programs. No programs were applied to the control group and they continued their education in their own programs. As a result of the study it was found that the post-test scores of the children in the experiment group were significantly higher than their pre-test scores. It was determined that there was no significant difference between the posttest scores and the pre-test scores of the control group. To sum up, it can be claimed that the robotic coding education, which was applied to preschool children, developed the children’s skills of scientific process.

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