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The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) camp program on rural students' self-efficacy and computational thinking skills. One hundred fifty-three third- and fourth-grade elementary school students from three different rural schools in China were recruited to participate. All participants took part in the camp program for three consecutive days. A single group pre- and post-test design was used, and the study employed both quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine elementary school students' self-efficacy and computational thinking skills in the context of STEM activities. The findings revealed that the robotics STEM camp program significantly affected the self-efficacy and computational thinking of students in rural elementary schools. In addition, students' experience with engineering-based activities had a statistically significant impact on computational thinking skills, and programming experience affected self-efficacy with regard to participation in STEM activities. There were gender differences in student satisfaction with the subject of the robotics STEM camp program. Finally, this study makes relevant suggestions for the future development of STEM camp activities and course design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning has embraced the 'open' process in recent years, as many educational resources are made available for free online. Existing research, however, has not provided sufficient evidence to systematically improve open learning interactions and engagement in open educational resource (OER) systems. This deficiency presents two challenges to the efficacy of OER systems. First, OER users might not take full advantage of open content since their interactions and experience with open learning systems cannot be optimized. Second, this lack of interaction could discourage the overall usage of OER systems, thus impeding their sustainability. This study addressed both issues by investigating technology acceptance levels among users of an OER portal, MyOOPS, in Taiwan. The study aimed to understand how open learners might be motivated to engage with OER systems. Based on 729 valid responses, the structural equation modeling revealed a lack of learning goal structure and irrelevance of self-efficacy in participants' motivational systems. The result prompted an urgent need to reexamine existing motivational design thinking in order to address emerging motivational challenges in open and goal-free learning environments supported by OER systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]