Children's peer assessment and self-disclosure in the presence of an educational robot

Abstract

Research in education has long established how children mutually influence and support each other's learning trajectories, eventually leading to the development and widespread use of learning methods based on peer activities. In order to explore children's learning behavior in the presence of a robotic facilitator during a collaborative writing activity, we investigated how they assess their peers in two specific group learning situations: peer-tutoring and peer-learning. Our scenario comprises of a pair of children performing a collaborative activity involving the act of writing a word/letter on a tactile tablet. In the peer-tutoring condition, one child acts as the teacher and the other as the learner, while in the peer-learning condition, both children are learners without the attribution of any specific role. Our experiment includes 40 children in total (between 6 and 8 years old) over the two conditions, each time in the presence of a robot facilitator. Our results suggest that the peer-tutoring situation leads to significantly more corrective feedback being provided, as well as the children more disposed to self-disclosure to the robot.

Child–Robot Relationship Formation: A Narrative Review of Empirical Research

“…In contrast, robots that were presented or perceived in the role of a younger creature with fewer capabilities than the child itself fostered a child's closeness with the robot [28,71,88,98,134,142]. Moreover, closeness equally seemed to be related to the roles assigned to children themselves [31]. Finally, a child's physical interaction with a robot, rather than embodiment as a feature in itself, seemed to influence closeness [50,54,70].…”

Classification of Children's Handwriting Errors for the Design of an Educational Co-writer Robotic Peer

“…On the other hand, the results showed that all the tutor-children under the PT condition gave significantly more extended corrective feedback to their peers (Mdn = 2.5) in comparison to the children under the PL condition (Mdn = 0.0), U = 21, p < .001, r = .73, as observed in Fig. 9(b) [11]. The results of the children's learning gains under the PT condition suggest a significant improvement in the children's learning gains in the post-test compared to the pre-test.…”

“…The results of the children's learning gains under the PT condition suggest a significant improvement in the children's learning gains in the post-test compared to the pre-test. However, no significance differences in pre-/post-test scores were found under the PL condition [11]. Overall, the PT method found to be more effective in all three regards.…”

“…Regarding selfdisclosure, all the tutor-children and learner-children under the PT condition gave significantly more extended self-disclosures to the robot in comparison to the children under the PL condition [11]. Regarding the corrective feedback given by the children, the result of a Man-Whitney U test suggested that all learner-children under the PT condition gave significantly more extended feedback to their peers (Mdn = 5.0) compared to the children under the PL condition (Mdn = 0.0), U = 57, p < 0.05, r = .43, as depicted in Fig.…”

“…Regarding the corrective feedback given by the children, the result of a Man-Whitney U test suggested that all learner-children under the PT condition gave significantly more extended feedback to their peers (Mdn = 5.0) compared to the children under the PL condition (Mdn = 0.0), U = 57, p < 0.05, r = .43, as depicted in Fig. 9(a) [11]. On the other hand, the results showed that all the tutor-children under the PT condition gave significantly more extended corrective feedback to their peers (Mdn = 2.5) in comparison to the children under the PL condition (Mdn = 0.0), U = 21, p < .001, r = .73, as observed in Fig.…”