Comparison of object‐oriented and robot programming activities: The effects of programming modality on student achievement, abstraction, problem solving, and motivation.

This study compares the effects of object‐oriented and robot programming activities on programming achievement, abstraction, problem solving, and motivation. In the study, two consecutive experimental cases were conducted to examine the consistency of findings. The research sample comprises 81 tenth‐grade students undergoing vocational secondary education. A total of 41 students participated in the first case that spanned 12 weeks, and 40 students participated in the second that spanned 8 weeks. After computational activities, the programming achievement scores significantly increased in all test groups. However, the achievement scores did not differ significantly between the groups. For the comparison groups, there was no statistically significant difference in the pre‐ and posttest scores of the formal and descriptive abstraction in both cases. However, a statistically significant increase was found in the formal (only Case 2) and descriptive abstraction scores of the students in the experimental groups. The abstraction results revealed a significant difference in the descriptive abstraction scores of Case 2 in favour of the experimental group. No statistically significant difference was found in the problem‐solving scores within or between groups. In both cases, the motivation scores of the experimental groups were found to be statistically higher than those of the comparison groups. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic?: Programming activities that encourage how to think rather than what to think, have the potential to be effective instructional tools for cognitive processes.Despite the increasing research trend in computer science education, especially Computational Thinking (CT), there is a lack of studies investigating abstraction.Most of the studies on CT are based on a single cross‐sectional study shaped by relatively short‐term instructional activities and narrow‐scoped computational concepts. What this paper adds?: This study examined the effects of two programming modalities on tenth‐grade students' learning, intellectual skills, and motivation.Two consecutive interventions were conducted in order to examine the consistency of the findings.Robot programming is as effective as object‐oriented programming in the acquisition of programming concepts.Robot programming enhanced students' descriptive abstraction and motivation more effectively.Programming did not lead to any significant changes in students' problem‐solving approaches to daily‐life problems. Implications for practice and/or policy: The use of manipulative robotics can enrich learning outcomes in programming education.Robotic activities support the development of descriptive abstraction skills better than object‐oriented programming.Robotic technologies have great potential to increase student motivation regardless of the novelty effect.Problems used in programming activities should be chosen more relevant to the authentic world scenarios to connect computational approaches with daily life problems.Educational robots can be used as alternative tools to embody computational concepts in programming education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]