You are an astroneer: the effects of robotics camps on secondary school students’ perceptions and attitudes towards STEM

Creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration are thought to be the core skills that will enable students to be successful in the future. Economic and social development of a nation is associated with the individuals’ such new skills, which are commonly referred as the twenty-first-century skills. However, the educational methods used in transmitting knowledge from teachers to students are not capable enough to bring up such competent individuals. The “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics” (STEM) education is a promising approach to help students gain those skills and robotics offers opportunities to integrate STEM education. This study aims to investigate the effects of robotics summer camps with STEM activities on students’ perception and attitudes towards STEM. The researchers organized two robotics summer camps in 2017 and 2018 with 48 students. Data were collected by using the STEM Perception Test and STEM Attitude Test. The pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design without a control group was used in the study. Wilcoxon’s Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks tests showed that students’ perceptions towards STEM increased at the first robotics camp; however, students’ attitudes towards STEM did not change significantly in both robotics camps. Furthermore, mathematics sub-dimension of STEM perception at the first camp and science sub-dimension of STEM attitude at the second camp significantly increased.