Abstract:

The project "Robotics-based learning interventions for preventing school failure and Early School Leaving” idea is inspired from belief (based on evidence coming from the relevant literature) that traditional school curricula, boring educational content and old fashioned teaching practices are among the main factors responsible for school failure and early school leaving (ESL) phenomenon, which are considered to be closely connected and consist a serious problem challenging European education systems and economies with negative impact on personal, professional, economic and societal growth.

In this frame the project intended to explore how innovative technology-enhanced learning and teaching can address low achievement in basic skills and support schools to tackle ESL problem. Project partners' experience in the development of robotics-based projects in schools has shown that educational robotics (ER), if deployed in a constructivist/constructionist learning environment (S. Papert) and within a project-based learning methodology, can offer learning opportunities for children that support the development of basic and transversal skills such as creativity, teamwork, problem solving and more, and keep students interested and motivated with hands-on, fun learning activities.

In this sense ER might potentially contribute to address the problems of school failure and ESL. However, there is no systematic introduction of robotics in school curricula in European school systems; when this happens, ER is usually recommended only for children with high achievements and high interest in science and technology. Differently from this misconception, this project aims at making available the potential of robotics for children being at risk of ESL aspiring to foster basic and transversal skills, to motivate their interest in schooling, and finally to tackle ESL.

The aim of this study is to investigate how robotics-based learning activities can prevent ESL.
The research tools make a mix method of investigation including mainly questionnaires before and after activities for students and teachers who were involved. There was developed structured obervation tool to collect results of activity observation. The SPSS programme is used to process the data, and analyse them together with data from observations and discussions with teachers. Data are collected by quantitative and qualitative research methods.

The findings include descriptive analysis, verification of the data, interpretations, illustrations, and conclusions.

Keywords:

Robotics-based learning, early school leaving.