Educational robotics and STEM in primary education: a review and a meta-analysis

Educational Robotics (ER) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) have entered schools and are parts of formal and informal education. Consequently, a wide range of relevant activities and interventions, from kindergarten to high school, are carried out emphasizing their potential benefits, in relation to traditional curriculum, while skepticism also appears among researchers and specialists. To highlight issues on this matter, this paper presents a lucid and systematic literature review exploring the effects and characteristics of ER research. In this work, 21 empirical articles out of 808 records from 8 databases were employed. The main features of the articles, such as research design, sample size, intervention objectives, equipment type, and activities, were recorded and elaborated to understand the types and the significance of inquiries conducted in the field. In addition, 57 studies involving 10,913 participants, which emerged from the review search, were subjected to a meta-analysis and investigated the effects of ER and STEM use on students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The finding showed that most of the related studies are non-experimental with limited duration, and more effort is needed to apply these technologies in less traditional domains like language learning or history. The meta-analysis showed that ER and STEM have a positive impact on knowledge, skills, and attitudes, while students' skills proved to have benefited the most from the use of these technologies.