Document Type

Article

Abstract

There is a large disconnect between the increasing need for computer science education in K-12 schools and the preservice teacher training provided. Consequently, preservice teachers may graduate feeling unprepared to infuse computer science concepts such as computational thinking (CT) into their teaching. To address this, we created Robotics in Early Childhood STEM Education (REC-STEMEd), a module that infuses computational thinking, robotics, and science content into an early childhood teacher education methods course. This study investigated changes in early childhood preservice teachers’ (n = 39) attitudes toward learning to teach CT and their intentions to teach CT. Findings revealed a statistically significant increase in participants’ positive affection and positive cognition, and a significant decrease in negative cognition toward learning to teach CT. A moderate but not significant decrease was found in their negative cognition. Moreover, participants reported moderately positive attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions toward teaching CT in the future.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-025-13529-1

Rights

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

APA Citation

Vasconcelos, L., Arslan-Ari, I., Miller, B., & Gonzalez-Tapia, R. (2025). Robotics in early childhood STEM education (REC-STEMEd): The impact on preservice teachers’ attitudes and intentions toward computational thinking. Education and Information Technologies.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-025-13529-1

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