Having an Einstein in Class - Teaching Maths with Robots is Different for Boys and Girls

We conducted an experiment with Chinese schoolchildren being taught symbolic reasoning and solving equations of the form 2y + 3 = 7, using a Hanson Einstein robot together with video instruction. The children were unfamiliar to solving equations like these (baseline 0) and after robot tutoring, they were tested for learning outcomes, while they rated their appreciation of the robot. We found a crossover interaction effect of boys learning more from video and girls more from the robot. The effect was catalytic in that only the combination of factors worked (no main effects). Results are discussed in view of gender-specific technology application.