Towards a competence-behaviour-design alignment for educational robotics kits: a theoretical synthesis and development principles

Abstract Educational robotics kits (ERKs) are widely used to support competence-oriented technology education, yet their design is rarely grounded in clearly prioritised technological competences and associated learning behaviours. This research, situated in China’s General Technology curriculum, addresses this gap by developing a competence-behaviour-design (C-B-D) alignment for ERKs. The research problem concerns what consistent priority competences and their operationalised learning behaviours are required to guide ERK design. A two-phase mixed-methods approach was adopted. Study 1 used a Delphi-Analytic Hierarchy Process with experienced teachers to prioritise curriculum-defined competences. Materialisation capacity and engineering thinking emerged as highest priorities; within materialisation capacity, ‘knowledge and selection of materials and tools’ and ‘making and processing capability’ were rated equally important, while ‘systems analysis thinking’ was the dominant indicator for engineering thinking. Study 2 undertook document- and artefact-based analysis to identify operationalised learning behaviours corresponding to these competences. Results show that materialisation capacity is predominantly enacted through component selection, modular assembly and basic structural testing, whereas engineering thinking is mainly elicited through functional evaluation, system-level assembly and the design of complete functional structures. The findings characterise priority technological competence as a coherent core of systematic understanding and making, and the associated behaviours as a concrete repertoire of design-and-build actions that bridge precise hands-on making with system-level problem solving. The study contributes a theoretical model of C-B-D alignment and a set of theory-informed ERK design guidelines with feature-behaviour mappings, offering practical guidance for competence-aligned curriculum implementation and product development in technology education contexts internationally, and supporting future empirical evaluation.