Can Social Robots Effectively Elicit Curiosity in STEM Topics from K-1 Students During Oral Assessments?

TL;DR

This study evaluates the use of social robots in early education assessments, finding they are as effective as humans and can stimulate curiosity in STEM among young children.

Contribution

It demonstrates that social robots can reliably administer speech assessments and effectively promote curiosity in robotics and STEM for K-1 students.

Findings

No significant difference in assessment responses between robot and human conditions

Robots successfully stimulated curiosity in robotics and STEM topics

Interactions with robots are as effective as human assessments for young children

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a pilot study that introduces social robots into kindergarten and first-grade classroom tasks. This study aims to understand 1) how effective social robots are in administering educational activities and assessments, and 2) if these interactions with social robots can serve as a gateway into learning about robotics and STEM for young children. We administered a commonly-used assessment (GFTA3) of speech production using a social robot and compared the quality of recorded responses to those obtained with a human assessor. In a comparison done between 40 children, we found no significant differences in the student responses between the two conditions over the three metrics used: word repetition accuracy, number of times additional help was needed, and similarity of prosody to the assessor. We also found that interactions with the robot were successfully able to stimulate curiosity in robotics, and therefore STEM, from a large number of the 164 student participants.