Robotics competitions boosts the development of STEM education, but gender disparity in this field remains rarely addressed by researchers. This study focused on the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) and tried to explore the gender differences through investigation method. The research questions are as follows: RQ1, what is the tendency of girls’ participation in WRO from 2015 to 2019 in terms of the four competition categories and three age groups? RQ2, what advantages and challenges do the all-girl teams have from the perspectives of parents, coaches and students? The results showed that among the 5956 participants in the 2015–2019 WRO finals, girls accounted for only 17.3%. The Open Category that emphasized creativity attracted relatively more girl participants. As age group moved up, the number of girl participants decreased. The qualitative results showed that the focuses of coaches, parents and students was not exactly the same. All-girl team have the advantages in their communication, presentation and collaboration skills but less good at robot building. The results indicated the importance of promoting girl’s participation in robot competitions and STEM fields. Coaches, mentors and parents need to provide girls with more support and encouragement in learning STEM subjects, especially at the junior high school level. Organizers of related competitions should give girls more exposure and opportunities by adjusting the mechanism.
<p style="text-indent:20px;">The integration of robotics education with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has a great potential in future education. In recent years, numerous countries have hosted robotic competitions. This study uses a mixed research method to explore the coaches' views on student participation in the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) by incorporating the questionnaire surveys and interviews conducted at the 2019 WRO finals in Hungary. By quantitative and qualitative analyses, coaches generally agreed that participation in the WRO improved students' STEM learning skills and cultivated their patience and resilience in handling challenging tasks.</p>
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.