The Effectiveness of Using Robots in a Computer Science Orientation Class

One goal of using robots in introductory computer science (CS) courses is to improve motivation among learners. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of using the Cozmo and Lego Mindstorm robots to improve students’ motivation in a CS orientation course, and we describe our experience using these robots in the lab. To evaluate the effectiveness, we asked participants in pre- and post-surveys about their motivation to learn about CS and programming due to the robots, as well as follow-up questions about the different robots and their engagement in the class because of the robots. Even though our results show students significantly more motivated to use the robots to learn about CS and programming before taking the class, this might be due to the heavy use of the Lego Mindstorm, which students rated less motivating than the Cozmo. While the use of robots negatively impacted students’ motivation, their overall interests in CS and coding decrease similarly to students in a course without robots.

Major Advisor: Jennifer Parham-Mocello
Committee: David Nembhard
Committee: Matthew William Shuman
GCR: Maggie Niess