Collaborative behavioural patterns of elementary school students working on a robotics project

Background: Educational robotics (ER) is a means of teaching technology and engineering to students that offers an active learning environment by encouraging them to create meaningful and unique products. ER also gives students the opportunity to work collaboratively. Objectives: In this study, elementary school students' behavioral patterns were explored while they were working on a collaborative robotics project. Additionally, behavioral patterns of higher-achievement and lower-achievement groups were compared.

Methods: The participants of the study were a total of 18 students (aged 10–12), including 17 males and 1 female. A problem-based robotics competition was designed within the scope of the study. The students were asked to design and program a robot based on certain rules in groups within four weeks for this competition. All robot design processes and the competition were video-recorded. Quantitative content analysis and lag-sequential analysis methods were used to analyze students' behaviors.

Results and Conclusions: The results showed that ER improves collaborative learning, and behaviors in the contributing and planning categories were the dominant behaviors during the robotics project development. Grouping skills of higher-achievement groups were better. Based on the significant collaborative behavioral patterns that emerged from the study, implications were discussed in terms of theoretical insights and collaborative educational robotics practices.