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Effects of roles assignment and learning styles on pair learning in robotics education

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Abstract

Pair learning (PL) in robotics education is derived from pair programming, and impacted by many factors. Two important factors were identified including roles assignment and learning styles in this study. The roles assignment involved Driver–Navigator Pair and Software–Hardware Pair. For the learning style, the dimension of active/reflective was adopted. Therefore, a 2*3 factorial design was employed with the between-subjects factors roles assignment and learning styles. After a one-semester robotics course, we evaluated 66 fifth-grade students’ learning achievements, attitude towards robotics, engagement, mental efforts, compatibility, and attitude towards PL. The results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference among different pairs in the above six indicators. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the learning outcomes among pairs of different learning styles. One important explanation is that the joint effect of PL might bridge the difference in learning performance that may be caused by learning style.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the General Project for Education from National Social Science Fund of China (Study on Pair Learning Model in Robotics Education in K-12, Grant Number BCA190088). The authors would like to thank Zhang Lu for revising teaching materials, and Xia Liying for thoughtful suggestions on this manuscript.

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  1. School of Information Technology in Education, South China Normal University, No. 55, West of Zhongshan Avenue, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Baichang Zhong

  2. School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

    Yanxia Wang

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  1. Baichang Zhong
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Zhong, B., Wang, Y. Effects of roles assignment and learning styles on pair learning in robotics education. Int J Technol Des Educ 31, 41–59 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-019-09536-2

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