Insights from Empirical Results on Robotics in Early Childhood Education: Lithuanian Case

Abstract

The paper aims to research the benefits of robotics to early childhood education, specifically prosocial values. The study examined a sample (n = 130) of children from fourteen kindergartens in one Lithuanian region aged 3-4 and 5-6 years old. The results demonstrated statistically significant differences in both groups learning with and without robots regarding collaboration, interest, and joy measures. However, there was no statistically significant difference in group 3-4 children regarding the difficulties measure. Also, the results revealed that children aged 5-6 had fewer difficulties in learning using the robot than without robots. This study provides insights that activities with robots foster positive emotions and prosocial values and decreases negative emotions while learning with robots.