Motivating Students' Self-study with Goal Reminder and Emotional Support

TL;DR

This study investigates how social robots providing goal reminders and emotional support can enhance college students' focus, engagement, and motivation during self-study, highlighting their potential as supportive study companions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of using social robots with goal and emotional support features to aid self-study, an area previously underexplored.

Findings

Participants reported greater ease of use with emotional and goal support robots.

Goal reminder increased willingness to use the robot in future sessions.

Perception of the robot as a social other predicted goal achievement.

Abstract

While the efficacy of social robots in supporting people in learning tasks has been extensively investigated, their potential impact in assisting students in self-studying contexts has not been investigated much. This study explores how a social robot can act as a peer study companion for college students during self-study tasks by delivering task-oriented goal reminder and positive emotional support. We conducted an exploratory Wizard-of-Oz study to explore how these robotic support behaviors impacted students' perceived focus, productivity, and engagement in comparison to a robot that only provided physical presence (control). Our study results suggest that participants in the goal reminder and the emotional support conditions reported greater ease of use, with the goal reminder condition additionally showing a higher willingness to use the robot in future study sessions. Participants' satisfaction with the robot was correlated with their perception of the robot as a social other, and this perception was found to be a predictor for their level of goal achievement in the self-study task. These findings highlight the potential of socially assistive robots to support self-study through both functional and emotional engagement.