Barriers and Facilitators of Robot-Assisted Education in Higher Education: A Systematic Mixed-Studies Review

Abstract

Lack of motivation and enjoyment is a challenge that many students face. Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, many lessons are not being conducted face-to-face. However, the use of robots has been proven able to alleviate this challenge. This review explores the barriers and facilitators of robot-assisted education among higher education students. Ten databases were comprehensively searched for studies in English. Both published and unpublished studies were considered without a time limit. A systematic mixed-studies review was adopted and the mixed method appraisal tool was used to assess the methodological quality of the selected articles. The qualitative and quantitative findings were then synthesized via thematic and narrative syntheses, respectively. To integrate these two sets of findings, a result-based convergent synthesis was performed. A total of 28 studies covering 1689 higher education students across 14 countries were eventually used for the analysis. Most of these studies had average to high methodological quality. Two barrier themes were identified from these studies, namely, poor audio verbatim from the robots, and disruption and restrictions from software and hardware of the robot. Meanwhile, three themes related to facilitators were identified, namely, greater engagement in learning, facilitation in remote learning, and knowledge enhancement. The use of robot-assisted education has been proven to improve student learning in higher education. Robot-assisted education is an alternate educational technique that can be utilized to supplement and augment ongoing teaching arrangements. Future studies should examine a specific type of robot in a comparable learning environment.