Impact of using an educational robotics model on students’ innovation: the case of a final year class at a technical high school in Morocco

Résumé

The current Moroccan high school curriculum, especially in the final year class of the mechanical science and technology discipline, looks like it insufficiently promotes the development of interdisciplinary and practical skills. Students’ overall development, both technically and personally, reflects this shortcoming. In fact, the selected approaches to teaching often concentrate on theory, ignoring practical application and real-life situations where the knowledge gained is used. In order to remedy this problem, it is essential to include more creative approaches focused on practical projects, such as robotics. This article presents an exploratory quasi-experimental study in which we try to evaluate how integrating AlphaBot2 educational robotics (STM32WB55RG-based) impacts innovation level among Moroccan technical high school students. Eight students were selected based on their academic status, previous experience, and availability. Three methodological frameworks are introduced and applied to the extent permitted by the sample size: (1) a quasi-experimental within-subjects design comparing two experimental conditions; (2) construct validity assessment of the Composite Innovation Index (CII) (which comprising eight indicators of innovation) through Cronbach's alpha, which proved statistically unstable at N = 8, confirming that full psychometric validation (CFA, SEM) requires a substantially larger sample; and (3) a Wilcoxon signed-rank test as a feasible non-parametric analogue to MANOVA for within-subjects comparisons. The mean CII score in Condition A (without time constraint) was 4.195 out of 5 (SD = 0.114), with the highest scores in critical thinking (M = 4.250) and autonomy (M = 4.333). A Wilcoxon signed-rank test comparing CII composite scores between Condition A (M = 4.195) and Condition B (with time constraint, M = 4.291) did not reach statistical significance (W = 8, Z = −1.40, p = 0.195), although the effect size was medium-to-large (r = 0.495). Six of eight students showed improvement under time pressure, while two (S6, S8) showed slight decreases. These findings confirm the exploratory potential of educational robotics for fostering innovation in Moroccan STEM education, while underscoring the methodological requirements for confirmatory research.

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