Robots in education: Influence of Regulatory Focus Theory

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has massively developed the use of distance learning. The limits of this practice have gradually come to light, both for students and for teachers. It is now crucial to design alternative solutions to overcome the shortcomings of videoconferencing in terms of involvement, concentration, learning, and equity. Social robots are increasingly used as tutors in the educational context and help improve teaching efficiency. Many psychology-based principles have been applied in education to guide instructional strategies, motivate students, and create a positive and productive learning environment. In this work, we use Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT), which categorizes an individual’s motivation into two types: Promotion and Prevention. Promotion-focused individuals are motivated by the potential for growth and achievement, whereas prevention-focused individuals are motivated by the potential for avoiding negative outcomes. Based on RFT, we aim to explore if and how the regulatory-focused behavior of the tutor robot can affect participants’ learning outcomes. In this work, a language learning scenario was designed with two conditions: (1) a robot tutor with promotion-focused behavior, (2) a robot tutor with prevention-focused behavior. The results are encouraging and support that promotion robot tutor can increase the learning efficiency of promotion participants and prevention robot tutor will enhance the learning interest of prevention participants.