The Effect of Lego Wedo 2.0 Education on Academic Achievement and Attitudes and Computational Thinking Skills of Learners toward Science

Abstract

Today, the essential skills and characteristics of individuals change within the frame of changing needs. The acquisition of these skills to individuals is not sufficient with traditional education and difficulties are experienced in adapting to the age. While gaining 21st century skills, conducting interdisciplinary studies is becoming importance and increasing the efficiency. In this study, the effect of LEGO WeDo 2.0 robotics education on academic achievement, attitude and computational thinking skills of the learners toward science was examined. The study was conducted with 5 th grade students (N=36) in a private school in Elazığ in the 2017-2018 school year. The study model was the "pretest-posttest control group design" of the experimental method. As data collection tool, “Science Course Academic Achievement Test”, “Science Course Attitude Scale”, and “Computational Thinking Scale” were used in the study. While the activities in the experimental group were carried out with LEGO WeDo 2.0 Robotic Education Set, the same activities in the control group were implemented using the traditional direct instruction technique as in the curriculum. The application was continued for eleven weeks and the obtained quantitative data were evaluated at the significance level of 0.05 with SPSS packaged software. It was seen as a result of the study that attitudes, academic achievements and computational thinking skills of the experimental group students, who received robotic-assisted science education, toward science course differed significantly compared to the students in the control group.