Learning 21st Century Skills Through Educational Robotics Competitions

Educational robotics competitions such as the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) are popular out-of-school learning settings for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, especially Computer Science (CS) education. The aim of this competition (alike many other initiatives) is to prepare students for a life in the digital age by fostering their 21st century skills and motivate them to choose a profession the field of STEM. Regardless, many initiatives fail to monitor their impact. In 2019, the organizers of the WRO conducted an impact evaluation study in collaboration with the CS education group of the University of Würzburg to address this issue. In this article we present the results of this evaluation study regarding the students’ learning of 21st century skills.