Assessing the usefulness of object-based programming education using arduino

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to use Squeak etoys and Arduino to design education activities so that middle school students can learn the object-oriented paradigm, and assess how usable the education activities are at the level of middle school students. As for education activities, learning methods, such as imitating, modifying and creating, were introduced. Usefulness assessment was divided into a cognitive domain and a definitional domain before the assessment tools were developed. An object-based programming class for 11 middle school students was then conducted and the results analysed. Positive results were confirmed in both the cognitive domain and the definitional domain. The results of this study are meaningful in that the possibility of object-oriented education was discovered for middle school students as well. Also, considering the sequence of object-oriented education, it was found that it is necessary to develop object-oriented programming education at the level of both elementary and high schools.