Can a Social Robot Encourage Children’s Self-Study?

This paper presents a robot behavioral model designed to support children during self-study. In particular, we want to investigate how a robot could increase the time children keep concentration. The behavioral model was developed by observing children during self-study and by collecting information from experienced tutors through interviews. After observing the children, we decided to consider three states corresponding to different levels of concentration. The child can be smoothly performing the task (“learning” state), encountering some difficulties (“stuck” state) or distracted (“distracted” state). The behavioral model was designed to increase the time spent concentrating on the task by implementing adequate behaviors for each of these three states. These behaviors were designed using the advices collected during the interview survey of the experienced tutors. A self-study system based on the proposed behavior model was implemented. In this system, a small robot sits on the table and encourages the child during self-study. An operator is in charge of determining the state of the child (Wizard of Oz) and the behavioral model triggers the appropriate behaviors for the different states. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed behavioral model, a user study was conducted: 22 children were asked to solve problems alone and to solve problems with the robot. The children spent significantly (p = 0.024) more time in the “learning” state when studying with the robot.