Over the past decade educational robots became widely used tools in the classrooms across Europe and worldwide. (The global market of education robots is expected to grow about 16% during 2026.) Eguchi (2010) in his analysis described three different approaches to Educational Robotics: Theme-Based Curriculum Approach, Project-Based Approach and Goal-Oriented Approach. These approaches have covered most of the areas of ER applications in school settings.

Educational and pedagogical backgrounds are widely dicussed in recently published literature (see reviews in Jung & Won, 2018; Anwar et al., 2019; robotics integration models in Khanlari, 2016; Fehér & Aknai, 2019; El-Hamamsy et. al., 2020), but there are a lot of open research questions (Alimisis, 2013) which require urgent answers and solutions. One of the most important[1]  of these questions is creating the theoretical framework about the connection of computational thinking skill and ER usage. How ER should be effectively implemented to classroom work, built in into curriculum for better integration with the support of the development of students' computational thinking skills (Chevalier et al., 2020). Another important question is the evaluation of21st century skills developed during educational use of robots. Alamisis (2013, p. 68.) also highlihted that „Without validation of the direct impact of robotics on students‟ learning and personal development, robotics activities might be just a fashion.”

Several studies (for example Ertmer, 1999; Pine-Thomas, 2017) have been written about the barriers of technology integration in the educational settings among different levels of educators (higher- or lower level of education). Despite the increasing number of school-robots,  the type of barriers and challenges  teachers need to face during ER integration is less studied (Khanlari, 2016). Our research was motivated (at least partially) to fill this gap.

The main research questions of our study were the following:

• What are the first- and second-order barriers of integrating ER in European countries and in Hungarian schools?
• Which steps are required on national level to promote and support the strengthening and speeding up of the integration of ER?
• How does the different countries implement robotics into curriculum and provide necessary financial support (robots and robotics courses for techers) for their schools?
• Which ways best fit the improvement of teachers’ knowledge about ER and computational thinking skills, during and after Covid-19?

Besides the mentioned barriers later we would like to examine the pratical challenges occuring during everyday classroom work. (For example, choosing of adequate robots, creating interesting exercises for lessons, differentiating between girl and boys, etc.)

In this research we used the following definition of Educational robotics, suggested by Angel-Fernandez & Vincze(2018): "Educational Robotics is a field of study that aims to improve learning experience of people through the creation and implementation of activities, technologies and artifacts, where robots play an active role." The phenomenon of barriers based on the research of Ertmer (1999), which defined the first-order and the second-order barriers of change during the technology integration process. According to Ertmer, the first-order barriers are „ obstacles that are extrinsic to teachers”, and the second-order barriers are intrisic barriers, and „are typically rooted in teachers' underlying beliefs about teaching and learning”. One of our goals was to examine these second-order barriers. We conducted a systematic and thematic literature review about applications of ER based on the following databases: ScienceDirect, ResearchGate, Google Scolar and some conference proceedings. We used selected studies published from the years 2010 to 2020, focusing on issues and challenges of ER, and the teachers’ opinions and attitudes regarding barriers and challenges. After the literature review, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers selected from the participants of further development training courses for teachers. The objectives of an interviews were to obtain information on teachers' believes about second-order barriers, and challenges they found problematic. The following information was gathered by interviews: what type of preliminary knowledge they have about ER; their vision about using ER in the classroom; how they plan to implement the ER into curriculum for effectively support students. Data was analysed mainly following the method outlined by Schmidt (2004).

The primary aim of this study was to determine/identify the first- and second-order barriers of integration of educational robots into curriculum as well as classroom usage, mainly of STEM areas. The teachers' answers and opinions demonstrated, that they feel the most important problem is the inadequate number of robotics tools in the classrooms. The challenges of everyday practice are pushed into the background by this type of issues. However, the decision-makers require more evidence-based results for investing this new technology. (For example in The Digital Education Strategy of Hungary covers the requirements of ER in classrooms, but the financial resources have not been secured, yet. The teacher interviews also confirmed our hypothesis, that the growing number of robotics tools provide only the material base of the implementation of ER, but in order to take advantage of classroom use of devices effectively require more empirical research and the share of good practices among teachers. We found a huge ”missing link” between the current state of research and the teachers’ everyday pratice. It means, that there is a mutual responsibility between the researchers and teachers to share their knowledge for making further progress. The findings of this research will be used to enhance the results of previous (Hungarian) case studies and share this through publications. This study also concludes, that more detailed theoretical framework and background remarkably increase the effective use of educational robotics. It could provide some ideas not also for researchers, but the teachers as well. The presentation will describe a more detailed analysis of the results and some recommendations, as well as some questions for further research.

Alimisis, D: (2013). Educational robotics: Open questions and new challenges, Themes in Science & Technology Education, 6(1), 63-71 Angel-Fernandez, J.M., & Vincze, M. (2018): Towards a Formal Definition of Educational Robotics, In: Philipp Zech, Justus Piater (Eds.) Proceedings of the Austrian Robotics Workshop, Innsbruck University Press, Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.15203/3187-22-1-08 Anwar, S, Bascou, N., Menekse, M., Kardgar, A. (2019). A Systematic Review of Studies on Educational Robotics, Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) 9(2) Chevalier, M., Giang, C., Piatti, A. & Mondada, F. (2020). Fostering computational thinking through educational robotics: a model for creative computational problem solving, International Journal of STEM Education, 7(39) Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00238-z Eguchi, A. (2010). What is educational robotics? Theories behind it and practical implementation. In D. Gibson & B. Dodge (eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2010 (pp. 4006-4014). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Ertmer, P. (1999): Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47-61. El-Hamamsy, L., Chessel-Lazzarotto, F., Bruno, B., Roy, D., Cahlikova, T., Chevalier, M., Parriaux, G., Pellet, J.P., Lanarès, J., Dehler Zufferey, J. & Mondada, F. (2020). A computer science and robotics integration model for primary school: evaluation of a large-scale in-service K-4 teacher-training program. Education and Information Technologies. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10355-5 Feher, P. & Aknai, D.O. (2019). Wandering Robots in Hungarian Primary Schools: a Case Study, Paper, ECER Conference, Hamburg, 2019. Retrieved from https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/24/contribution/49025/ Jung, S.E. & Won, E. (2018). Systematic Review of Research Trends in Robotics Education for Young Children. Sustainability 2018, 10(4), 905 https://doi.org/10.3390/su10040905 Khanlari, A. (2016). Teachers’ perceptions of the benefits and the challenges of integrating educational robots into primary/elementary curricula, European Journal of Engineering Education 41(3):1-11 https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2015.1056106 Pine-Thomas, J., A. (2017). Educator 's Technology Integration Barriers and Student Technology Preparedness as 21st Century Professionals. Doctoral dissertation, Walden University, UK. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147837691.pdf F. Riedo, M. Chevalier, S. Magnenat and F. Mondada (2013). Thymio II, a robot that grows wiser with children, 2013 IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts, Tokyo, 187-193, Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2013.6705527 Schmidt, C. (2004). The Analysis of semi-structured interviews. In: Flick, U., Kardoff, E. & Steinke, I. (2004). A Companion to Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, London. 253-258.