PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS FOR STEM IN-SERVICE-TEACHERS IN ARDUINO TECHNOLOGY: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Annotatsiya
With the thriving integration of highly sophisticated technologies in education, Arduino has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing hands-on teaching and learning and enriching teachers' and students' computational and programming skills. Therefore, teachers must attend professional development (PD) programs in Arduino technology to acquire these new learning competencies. This systematic review was conducted to collect, review, and analyze these PD program studies’ designs, effectiveness, and policy recommendations, and these three constructs were the focus of this systematic review. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) were used to develop more reliable, valid, and credible data. The selection criteria were based on relevance, target population, outcomes, language, and year of publication. There were 656 (N = 656) articles initially identified from highly reputable journal repositories, and 13 were included after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. These 13 articles were verified by two experts with an 81% agreement rate. The results showed that most PD programs were from Turkiye, Germany, Italy, the United States, and China and focused on robotics education in a face-to-face modality. The designs of the PD programs primarily employed mixed methods and qualitative approaches. These studies successfully facilitated deeper learning, enhancing computational thinking, robotics self-efficacy, and content knowledge, and were found to be effective since all reached at least the Learning Level of Kirkpatrick’s Model. Additionally, it was found that the duration of the PD program has a strong correlation with the achievement of target outcomes. On the other hand, most of these PD programs did not conduct needs analysis and so were not vested in the teachers' actual personal and professional needs. Eight articles reported limited generalizability due to high attrition rates, small sample sizes, short durations, and small locales. Future professional development (PD) programs in this field should include needs assessments and follow-ups to support teachers appropriately.