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• Gaudiello, Ilaria
• Zibetti, Elisabetta

The educational potential of robotics kits as a form of control technology will remain undervalued until meaningful observation parameters are identified to enable a better understanding of children‟s control strategies. For this reason, this paper aims primarily to identify and classify the heuristics spontaneously applied by 6-10 year old children interacting with robotic devices containing specific transparency features (i.e. programmability) and interactivity features (i.e. immediacy of feedback). Two studies are described: an exploratory investigation into the control of a Lynx AL5A arm and a pilot study about the control of a Lego Mindstorms NXT®. Two issues relating to control heuristics are addressed: the heuristic shift and the perceived and objective level of task difficulty. The results demonstrate that three main types of heuristic emerge: (i) procedural-oriented, (ii) declarative-oriented, and (iii) metacognitive-oriented. Limitations of the difficulty indicators used and shift patterns proposed are discussed in relation to future research.

• Educational sciences

• Εκπαιδευτική τεχνολογία

educational robots, control heuristics, interactivity, transparency, Lego Mindstorms NXT®

The research reported here was partially supported by the European 7th FWP - PRI-SCI-NET (http://www.prisci.net). Project Reference: 266647. The exploratory study was made possible by volunteers from the Planète Science Association, in particular Clement Quinson. The pilot study was made possible by a partnership with Carréfour Numérique (Cité des Sciences et de l‟lndustrie) http://www.universcience.fr/fr/carrefour-numerique who supported us by providing the assistance of a number of people who we would like to thank: David Forgereon, Isabelle Chabanon Pouget, Helena Ragot, Adrien Schwarz, Thierry Thibault, Lou Panier. Thanks to Carol-Ann Pinaud for her involvement in the data logging and retranscription.

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