Fostering students' creativity via educational robotics: An investigation of teachers' pedagogical practices based on teacher interviews

This study explored how educational robotics (ER) was implemented in classrooms to foster creativity among elementary school students and identified challenges associated with its implementation. Twenty‐six teachers at different elementary schools were interviewed. In‐depth teacher interviews and grounded theory were used to collect and analyze the interviews. We found that the intended creative learning outcome for students was mastery of the developmental process of creativity. The teachers generally reported using a four‐phase instructional framework consisting of eight sub‐phases and targeted teaching strategies to support students' learning outcomes. Challenges included insufficient appropriate learning materials, a lack of expansive learning activities and tasks and limited opportunities to engage students in the process of design thinking and developing metacognitive abilities. The findings have practical implications for teachers and researchers who are interested in developing pedagogical practices (PP) incorporating ER to support students' creativity. The study also has theoretical value, offering insights into teachers' PP in implementing ER. Copyright © 2020 British Educational Research Association.