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Educational Robotics International Conference

EDUROBOTICS 2021: Education in & with Robotics to Foster 21st-Century Skills pp 190–201Cite as

There is No Such Thing as a “Trial and Error Strategy”

Part of the Studies in Computational Intelligence book series (SCI,volume 982)

Abstract

The concept of “trial and error strategy” is pervasively used in the literature on robot programming: in particular, it is often claimed that some novices use a trial and error strategy, while others use a more rational and reasoned strategy. Here it is argued that the concept of “trial and error” is of little use for the analysis of the strategies adopted by novices and experts in programming robots. Indeed, in a certain sense, all problems and sub-problems faced by programmers are addressed in a trial and error and rational fashion. Moreover, that very concept does not play any meaningful role in revealing the richness of the criteria used by novices and experts to orient themselves in the vast space of the possible solutions to their problems. These claims will rely on an artificial-intelligence-inspired construal of the concepts of “problem” and “strategy” and will be substantiated by a preliminary analysis of the various sub-problems involved in robot programming.

Keywords

  • Problem-solving strategies
  • Psychology of programming
  • Programming problems
  • Heuristics

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-77022-8_17
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Sciences for Education, RobotiCSS Lab (Laboratory of Robotics for the Cognitive and Social Sciences), University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Chiara Merisio, Gilda Bozzi & Edoardo Datteri

  2. Yunik, No-Profit Association, Milan, Italy

    Chiara Merisio & Gilda Bozzi

Authors
  1. Chiara Merisio
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  2. Gilda Bozzi
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  3. Edoardo Datteri
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edoardo Datteri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Monica Malvezzi

  2. European Lab for Educational Technology, Edumotiva, Sparta, Greece

    Dimitris Alimisis

  3. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy

    Michele Moro

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Merisio, C., Bozzi, G., Datteri, E. (2021). There is No Such Thing as a “Trial and Error Strategy”. In: Malvezzi, M., Alimisis, D., Moro, M. (eds) Education in & with Robotics to Foster 21st-Century Skills. EDUROBOTICS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 982. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77022-8_17

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