Abstract:

Educational Robotics has already been the object of several research studies (Druin, 2000; Arcella et al., 2003; Gabriele et al., 2005a, 2005b; Gabriele, 2006; Kim, Jeon, 2009; Bertacchini et al., 2010; Behrens et al., 2010; karp et al., 2010; Bilotta et al., 2011; Bertacchini et al., 2011; Gabriele et al., 2012). The approach of this discipline is based on the development of concrete experiences where subjects, without any specific background, can design, build and program their robotics artifact. These activities have an enormous potential as a learning tool since allow students to develop cognitive skills such as problem solving, decision making, creativity, manipulating artifacts and concepts.
Several research studies deal with Robotics experiences. Nevertheless, they are characterized by a scarcely systematic methodology in the data collection; moreover the results, though exciting and important, are usually summarized in reports as Barreto and Benitti (2012) underlined.
This paper reports the results of post-doc research project funded by Region of Calabria and reviewed by international and anonymous referees. The main aim of this research is to adopt a systematic methodology for collecting data during Robotics Laboratories, with the objective to investigate the cognitive skills of the subject linked to the manipulation of software and hardware tools. The experimentation has been carried out with secondary school students, employing the Project Based Learning methodology in the data collection, using the questionnaire method to investigate the subject motivation and to individuate the cognitive style of the subject (Mariani, 2000). Through the proposed research plan, we acquired significant results regarding: students motivations and how they affected the final results of the group; work strategies adopted by each group; modalities of solution of the encountered problems; cognitive strategies adopted by students in programming the robot. The results obtained demonstrate that the construction/programming of robots can powerfully engage and motivate also learners without a strong scientific background.

Keywords:

Educational Robotics, cognitive artifacts, cognitive strategies.