Proposal of a Behavioral Model for Robots Supporting Learning According to Learners’ Learning Performance

Educational support robots have been the focus of study in recent years. Studies have reported that robots providing educational support, based on cognitive apprenticeship theory, provided learners with effective collaborative learning. However, the robots were remote controlled, so no behavioral model was constructed of robots operating autonomously to provide educational support. Therefore, in this paper, we construct a behavioral model in which robots autonomously provide educational support based on cognitive apprenticeship theory. In addition, through a comparative experiment with a behavioral model providing educational support in accordance with learner requests, which is a conventional technique, we verify the learning effects of this behavioral model on university students.

Learning Effects of Robots Teaching Based on Cognitive Apprenticeship Theory

In recent years, educational support robots that assist learners have attracted attention. The main role of teacher-type robots in previous research has been to teach students how to solve problems and to explain learning material. Under such conditions, students may not learn the material adequately due to their reliance on the support of the robot; this paper utilizes the cognitive apprenticeship theory in order to prevent this problem. The cognitive apprenticeship theory asserts that the support provided to a student should change according to the student’s learning situation. Previous studies have reported that pedagogy based on the cognitive apprenticeship theory can improve students’ learning skills. Therefore, we hypothesize that students’ learning will improve when robots teach them how to solve questions based on the cognitive apprenticeship theory. In this paper, we investigate the learning effects of robot teaching based on the cognitive apprenticeship theory in collaborative learning with junior high-school and university students. The results of this experiment suggest that collaborative learning with robots that employ the cognitive apprenticeship theory improves the learning of high-school and university students.