Promoting primary school students’ creativity via reverse engineering pedagogy in robotics education

Creativity is an essential basic skill for students. In this study, the reverse engineering pedagogy (REP) was applied to primary school students’ robotics education course, with the aim of investigating the influence of REP and project-based pedagogy (PBP) on the cultivation of students' creativity. A quasi-experimental study that utilized a non-equivalent groups design was conducted with 91 fifth-grade students, comprising a control group (n = 46) who received the PBP intervention, and an intervention group (n = 45) who received the REP intervention. Creative self-efficacy, Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Figural (TTCT-Figural), and assessment of the students’ robotic creative products were conducted to evaluate students’ creativity. In addition, t tests, ANCOVA, and ANOVA were used to analyze the data to determine whether REP could improve students’ creativity better than PBP. The results showed that REP could enhance students’ creative self-efficacy and their robotic creative products score more than PBP could, but not the TTCT-Figural score after the confounding effect of fluency was controlled for. In the intervention group, creative self-efficacy and creative thinking were improved after intervention. Overall, REP has more advantages than PBP for promoting primary school students' creativity. The findings of this study provide a reference and teaching strategies guidance for the cultivation of K-12 students' creativity in robotics education.