Abstract
The fostering of empathy among primary school students is an important goal because it enhances the improvement of behavior and the development of positive social contacts. Empathy can contribute to understanding and supporting others’ needs. In most cases, empathy in young children is developed through listening to sad stories, experienced first-hand by others. In the educational scenario presented in this article, the dramatic effects of climate change were conveyed to the pupils through a message said to originate from the future, delivered by an educational robot. The message was expressed by a peer living in Iran in 2050. In addition to delivering the message, the robot called on children to prevent climate change from rapidly worsening by changing their own way of thinking and attitudes. Thus, students called upon a formulated educational problem to understand and handle through their own emotional and cognitive performance through the robot’s storytelling. This performance was intensely affected by empathy towards the Iranian peer’s difficult personal living conditions. The research focused on measuring the evidence of empathy development. Additionally, the design and implementation aspects of the robot are presented, utilizing the implemented teaching intervention as means of demonstrating the innovative nature of the robot.
Highlights
Educational robotics is increasingly being exploited by primary school teachers, especially in projects aimed at developing 21st century skills [1,2]
The fact that this project’s activities were mainly presented and carried out by the educational robot and Reza contributed to the development of an immediate and comfortable climate in relation to traditional teaching practice where this role belongs to the teacher
This leads to the conclusion that the development of empathy in school teaching is stronger in a differentiated context than standard, usual practice
Summary
Educational robotics is increasingly being exploited by primary school teachers, especially in projects aimed at developing 21st century skills [1,2] Empathy is one such kind of skill which is deemed to crucially beneficial for students since it helps students better understand people’s social behavior and shape their own attitudes towards different social issues [3,4]. The accuracy of research measuring tools is limited in children, especially younger ones, due to the influence from their environment and their cautious attitude towards scientific measurement procedures in general [11] For this reason, systematic observation of student’s performance during project activities is the strategy proposed in this article for assessing the development of empathy. The paper is structured as follows: initially, the notion of empathy and its significance within education and social interaction is discussed; the utilization of robots in education is examined, leading to the proposed implementation of the EI-EDUROBOT; after that, a case study in which the robot was utilized for the facilitation of environmental and social empathy is presented, showcasing the unique functionalities of the robot’s design, before the concluding discussion
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