Verifying effectiveness of an expression education support robot that nods and gives hints

In recent years, expression education that improves imagination and communication skills has been of increasing interest. Suitable support and evaluation for each student in expression education is necessary because students have different skill levels. However, many existing educational institutions educate learners in a one-to-many environment. This makes it difficult for teachers to support and evaluate all learners adequately. In this study, we use a robot as an alternative to a teacher in a one-to-one environment. Suzuki et al. proposed a robot for supporting expression education that gives hints to arouse imagination. They suggested that the robot has a positive effect on learning support but cautioned that it is necessary for learners to have an interest in the robot and to pay attention to it in order for the effect to be felt. In this paper, we focus on the nod in non-verbal communication and propose a robot for supporting expression education that nods and gives hints. To determine the effectiveness of the proposed robot, we performed experiments in which we compare its performance with that of a robot that nods but does not give hints, a robot that gives hints but does not nod, and a robot that neither nods nor gives hints.