RT journal article
T1 A Study on the Suitability of Visual Languages for Non-Expert Robot Programmers
A1 Rodríguez Corral, José María
A1 Ruiz Rube, Iván
A1 Civit Balcells, Antón
A1 Mota Macías, José Miguel
A1 Morgado Estévez, Arturo
A1 Dodero Beardo, Juan Manuel
A2 Ingeniería Informática
K1 Authoring systems
K1 educational robots
K1 engineering education
K1 interdisciplinary projects
K1 visual programming
AB A visual programming language allows users and developers to create programs by manipulatingprogram elements graphically. Several studies have shown the bene ts of visual languages for learningpurposes and their applicability to robot programming. However, at present, there are not enough comparativestudies on the suitability of textual and visual languages for this purpose. In this paper, we study if, as witha textual language, the use of a visual language could also be suitable in the context of robot programmingand, if so, what the main advantages of using a visual language would be. For our experiments, we selecteda sample of 60 individuals among students with adequate knowledge of procedural programming, that wasdivided into three groups. For the  rst group of 20 students, a learning scenario based on a textual objectorientedlanguage was used for programming a speci c commercial robotic ball with sensing, wirelesscommunication, and output capabilities, whereas for the second and the third group, two learning scenariosbased on visual languages were used for programming the robot. After taking a course for programming therobot in the corresponding learning scenario, each group was evaluated by completing three programmingexercises related to the robot features (i.e. motion, lighting, and collision detection). Our results show thatthe students that worked with visual languages perceived a higher clarity level in their understanding of thecourse exposition, and a higher enjoyment level in the use of the programming environment. Moreover, theyalso achieved an overall better mark.
PB IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
SN 2169-3536
YR 2019
FD 2019-02
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/21327
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/21327
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 13-nov-2026