Social Robots in Education for Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction : Socially Supportive Behaviour of Robotic Tutor for Creating Robo-Tangible Learning Environment in a Guided Discovery Learning Interaction

Abstract

The article discusses the possible applications of social robots in education, the technological and pedagogical challenges they possess, and the ways in which they may affect learning outcomes, concentrating only on robots intended to assist students in learning via social interaction. Author has highlighted three significant research problems : 1) Does robot tutors help improve students’ learning outcomes? 2) Does appearance and behaviour of robots have a significant role to play on academic engagement of learners? 3) What could be the potential roles of a robot in an educational setting? A statistical meta-analysis of previously published research articles is used to substantiate author’s claims. The larger aim of this article is to provide effective groundwork for future research by describing the expected outcomes of using social robots to offer education and identifying potential research areas for further inquiry.