A longitudinal study of the effects of a high school robotics and computational thinking class on academic achievement (WIP)

While there has been a rising interest in computational thinking (CT) and a push to include it into the K-12 curriculum, there is little empirical evidence that a class that teaches CT will have any measurable long-term effects on student performance. Using robotics as an example of CT instruction, I propose to examine a high school that has had a large number of robotics students over the past six years to find evidence for the long-term benefits of CT. I will analyze school records (e.g. STEM class enrollment, STEM test scores, SAT scores) for differences between robotics and non-robotics students and compare interviews with selected students.