The effect of after-school extracurricular robotic classes on elementary students’ computational thinking

ABSTRACT

In modern society technology is widely used and, with the digitization of many services, this is an upward trend. Therefore, computational thinking (CT) is an increasingly important concept; an aspect that is being reflected on educational policies and the extracurricular offer of different countries. This study aims to look at the efficacy of private after-school extracurricular robotics activities, controlling fluid intelligence (Gf), a determining aspect in solving novel problems. A sample of 112 fifth-grade Spanish students was chosen, who completed two tests, the computational thinking test (CTt) (Román-González, 2016) and the KBIT fluid intelligence subtest (Kaufman, 1990). The results showed a great influence of Gf on the prediction of CT and significant differences between the students that had not attended after-school extracurricular classes and those that had attended for two or more years. Thus, this study substantiates the effectiveness of private extracurricular classes in promoting CT in the long term. Given the importance of CT nowadays, legislators should consider to include CT in compulsory education because private extracurricular classes could promote inequity.

KEYWORDS:

• Computational thinking
• fluid intelligence
• after-school
• extracurricular classes
• robotics
• curriculum

Funding sources

This work was supported by the University of Castilla-La Mancha under grant 2020-GRIN-28755 and SBPLY/19/180501/000462 and by the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Administration under grant SBPLY/19/180501/000278.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Castilla-La Mancha Regional Administration: [Grant Number SBPLY/19/180501/000278]; Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha: [Grant Number 2020-GRIN-28755,SBPLY/19/180501/000462].

Notes on contributors

José Miguel Merino-Armero

José Miguel Merino-Armero is a primary school teacher. His main areas of work are computational thinking and educational robotics.

José Antonio González-Calero

José Antonio González-Calero is a lecturer at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), with research interests in mathematics education, technology-based learning and problem solving.

Ramón Cózar-Gutiérrez

Ramón Cózar-Gutiérrez works as a lecturer at the Department of History (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain). His research interest is focused on social science education, teacher training and educational innovation and technology.