TY - JOUR
T1 - Robot tutor and pupils’ educational ability
T2 - Teaching the times tables
AU - Konijn, Elly A.
AU - Hoorn, Johan F.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Research shows promising results of educational robots in language and STEM tasks. In language, more research is available, occasionally in view of individual differences in pupils’ educational ability levels, and learning seems to improve with more expressive robot behaviors. In STEM, variations in robots’ behaviors have been examined with inconclusive results and never while systematically investigating how differences in educational abilities match with different robot behaviors. We applied an autonomously tutoring robot (without tablet, partly WOz) in a 2 × 2 experiment of social vs. neutral behavior in above-average vs. below-average schoolchildren (N = 86; age 8–10 years) while rehearsing the multiplication tables on a one-to-one basis. The standard school test showed that on average, pupils significantly improved their performance even after 3 occasions of 5-min exercises. Beyond-average pupils profited most from a robot tutor, whereas those below average in multiplication benefited more from a robot that showed neutral rather than more social behavior.
AB - Research shows promising results of educational robots in language and STEM tasks. In language, more research is available, occasionally in view of individual differences in pupils’ educational ability levels, and learning seems to improve with more expressive robot behaviors. In STEM, variations in robots’ behaviors have been examined with inconclusive results and never while systematically investigating how differences in educational abilities match with different robot behaviors. We applied an autonomously tutoring robot (without tablet, partly WOz) in a 2 × 2 experiment of social vs. neutral behavior in above-average vs. below-average schoolchildren (N = 86; age 8–10 years) while rehearsing the multiplication tables on a one-to-one basis. The standard school test showed that on average, pupils significantly improved their performance even after 3 occasions of 5-min exercises. Beyond-average pupils profited most from a robot tutor, whereas those below average in multiplication benefited more from a robot that showed neutral rather than more social behavior.
KW - Capacity issues
KW - Multiplication tables
KW - Primary school
KW - Robot tutor
KW - Social robots
KW - Tutoring
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088780035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85088780035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103970
DO - 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103970
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85088780035
SN - 0360-1315
VL - 157
JO - Computers and Education
JF - Computers and Education
IS - November
M1 - 103970
ER -
