Kindergarten Teachers’ Acceptance of Educational Robotics Online Tools for Computational Thinking

Abstract

Worldwide, the importance of computational thinking (CT) and its integration into the educational process at all levels of education has been highlighted as a fundamental skill for all. Nowadays, there is strong research interest in the integration of CT into curricula as early as kindergarten.  As kindergarten teachers play a key role in this effective integration, the paper discusses the acceptance and intention to use of three online tools for educational robotics (ScratchJr, ELPeIDA and Beebot simulation with Genial.ly) by kindergarten teachers. For the purposes of this research the teachers participated in distance learning sessions to be introduced to computational thinking in kindergarten and to become familiar with the three tools. The research tool was a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) based questionnaire including factors such as perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention to use and the external factors of self-efficacy, facilitating conditions and perceived enjoyment. One hundred and twenty-seven (127) kindergarten teachers participated in an online workshop and answered the questionnaire. The findings indicated that all the factors under study were highly rated by the kindergarten teachers, except for facilitating conditions. All factors showed positive intercorrelations among them. No statistically significant differences were found for the factors in relation to age, work relationship, educational experience and level of training in ICT of the kindergarten teachers. Kindergarten teachers who make extensive use of ICT and programming tools/environments in their teaching showed higher scores for all factors including the intention to use.