A Case Study of Integrating Lego Robotics into a Project-based Programming Course for College Students

• Main Authors: Mei-Yen Wang, 王湄雁
• Other Authors: Cathy Weng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/13267951652386097145

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 數位學習與教育研究所 === 103 === The advancement of technology has brought human life into another era, and education is not an exception. There are more and more different types of instructional tools can be utilized in our classrooms to enhance learning nowadays. The robotic education is taking the world by storm in recent years, especially the Lego robotic kits, since it is portable, high reconfigurable, and logical. These traits make it a hit in schools and among students all over different ages. Therefore, the current research wishes to expand the horizons of the field of robotic education and aimed at measuring the learning effect of integrating Lego robotic kits with project-based learning into a university programming course on students’ learning attitudes as well as their problem solving skills. A case study was conducted with one group pretest posttest research design at one local university in Taiwan. A total of 34 participants with the age between 20 to 22 years old from the computer science department joined the experiment. During the 17 weeks of the course, each class session lasted 150 minutes per week. Students had to use C++ or the NXT-G (Graphical user interface) to compile or finish a project with Lego robotic kits provided by the instructor. Quantitative data were collected with the inventories measuring students’ learning attitudes as well as their problem solving skills while several in-class observations and interviews were recorded. After the completion of the course, data gathered from questionnaires, final course grades, the results of an external competition, class observation, and interviews are used for analysis. The results of the study are as the following: 1. There is a positive significant effect of the utilization of Lego robotic kits in a course on students’ learning attitudes towards programing learning. 2. The integrated project-based Instruction in the course is only useful for some aspect of problem solving skills. Only the score for the sub-construct, action taking, was raised significantly after the experiment. 3. Overall, the integration of project-based learning and Lego robotic kits is useful for university students to learn programming, and they have great learning achievement. Finally, based on the findings of the study, suggestions for teachers and administration and future studies are discussed.