• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.151-159
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• 2015

In traditional programing education, computers were used as the main tool. Consequently, it was problematic to provide education in an environment without computers or for learners without computer skills. To address this problem, this study developed and validated an unplugged robot education system capable of computerless programming education. The key feature of the proposed system is that programing can be done only by connecting programming blocks in symbols of a flow chart with built-in commands. Validation of the system was performed by a specialist group. Validity was very high with values of content validity ratio (CVR) over 0.7 in all evaluation criteria except "Ease of error debugging" and "Linkages to educational curriculum," whose CVR values were each 0.6. Future directions include improvement in the two areas that scored lower than the others did by, respectively, system improvement to support debugging in error conditions that may occur during the programming process, and development of user guide to support linkages to educational curriculum.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.121-128
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• 2015

This study aimed to investigate the effects of an unplugged robot education system capable of computerless coding education. Specifically, this study compared this education system with PicoCricket, an educational robot that can also be used with elementary students in lower grades, using assessment tools on perceived usefulness and ease. Using random sampling and randomized assignment for more objective validation, 30 participants were assigned to the unplugged robot education system group (experimental group) and 30 participants were assigned to the PicoCricket group (control group), for a total of 60 study participants. The research procedure included verification of the equivalence of the two groups by conducting a pretest after a 2-hour basic training session on algorithms and programming. The experimental and control groups learned the same content using different educational tools in accordance with software training guidelines for a total of 12 hours. Then, the difference in perceived usefulness and ease between the two groups was examined using a post-treatment test. The study results showed that scores on both dependent variables, perceived usefulness and perceived ease, were significantly higher in the experimental group than the control group. Moreover, scores on all sub-variables of the dependent variables were significantly higher in the experimental group than the control group. These results suggest that learners using the unplugged robot education system found it more useful and easier to use than learners using the existing educational robot, PicoCricket. This study's findings are significant, as according to the technology acceptance model, the perceived usefulness and ease of an educational tool are important variables that determine the acceptance of the tool (i.e., persistence of learning).