Does Presence and Embodiment Matter? Investigating Telepresence Robots as a Superior Educational Modality to Videoconferencing

Abstract

Abstract Since the rise of COVID-19, the need for a teaching alternative to in-person instruction has grown tremendously. Although the most common alternative to in-person teaching has been videoconferencing, it is possible that telepresence robots can serve as an effective alternative teaching modality. In this experiment, 92 participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (Human, Telepresence Robot, or Videoconferencing) and were read two scripts followed by a quiz on topics conveyed in each script. Participants in the telepresence condition performed significantly better than participants in the videoconferencing condition on one of the quizzes. The results suggest that telepresence robots could be an effective alternative to videoconferencing.