Can a social robot help children's understanding of science in classrooms?

Abstract

This study investigates whether a social robot which interacts with children via quiz-style conversations increases their understanding of science classes. We installed a social robot in an elementary school science classroom where children could freely interact with it during their breaks. The robot asks children questions related to their latest science classes to support their understanding of the classes. During interaction, the robot says children's name and distribute its gaze among the group of children by using a face recognition system and a human tracking system. Still, speech recognition is difficult in the noisy elementary school environment; therefore the operator takes over this function during interactions. In this study our result did not show significant effects of the robot for helping children's understanding, but we found several interesting interaction scenes which shows that robot had a certain effect on specific children.