A robotic assistant to support the social and cognitive development of children from low-income families

Robotics in the Context of Primary and Preschool Education: A Scoping Review

“…The collected applications showed that Robotics is applied in various activities in early education, either to support Robotics and STEM related activities or to develop different skills. Specifically, 5 out of 12 collected applications utilized Robotics as a mean to develop executive function skills [12], to support the development of students' spatial abilities by involving them with a robotics mathematics course [57], to carry out learning activities about scientific research [58], to support the development of social and cognitive skills as well as to promote the access of children from low-income families to technology [62] and to provide chances of self-regulated learning with the help of a robotic tutor [61]. The use of Robotics in early education was additionally applied for conducting STEM related activities.…”

“…The use of Robotics in early education was additionally applied for conducting STEM related activities. Specifically, 10 out of the 12 collected applications tested robotic technology in order to advance students' technological literacy [55], to enhance technology attitudes and self-efficacy [64] and to conduct activities around the topics of electromagnetism [56], [62], scientific research [58], problem solving, planning, CT and programming [12], [59], [60], [63]- [65].…”

“…To evaluate the effectiveness of the integration of the robotic tools in early education various methods are applied, including analysis of video and images taken during the activities [55], [57], [58], data scanned with the help of the robotic application [56], teachers' observations [57], interviews with teachers [59] and students [64], surveys with the students [62], [64], [65] and teachers [59] and standardized domain assessments [12], [56], [60]- [63].…”

“…Most of the collected applications (10 out of 12) employed robotic kits to involve students in programming and construction activities [12], [55]- [57], [59], [60], [62]- [65]; the rest used the robotic technology as a means to learn about scientific research [58] or to support self-regulated learning [61].…”

“…Furthermore, most of the applications (9 out of 12) employed robotic tools from known educational material manufacturers, which may raise the cost of applications. Specifically, most of the collected applications employed LEGO WeDO kits [59], [60], [63], [65], Lego® Mindstorms® NXT robots [55], [61], Fischertechnik robotic kit sets [57], Bee-Bot [12], Aldebaran Robotics NAO torso [58] and Dash Robot [65], whereas 2 studies provided students with hardware electronics elements > REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MANUSCRIPT ID NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) < such as electric circuits kits and Arduino MEGA [56], [62] and only one did not mentioned the type of the robot [64]. Finally, despite the effectiveness demonstrated by the collected applications, some studies reported that there were issues in implementing Robotics in early education.…”