Use of Robots in Education

Abstract

Social robots are increasingly used in an educational context. Research thus far shows promising results with regard to the effects of social robots in education in various tasks and various pupils. Social robots in the classroom are perceived as motivating, enjoyable, and engaging by the pupils, mostly in primary school. Variations in robots' communicative behaviors have been examined with inconclusive results, such as comparing a robot's prosocial style to a neutral one. Individual differences, for example, in pupils' educational ability levels have thus far hardly been explored. The educational subject of tutoring might make a difference in combination with individual learning needs. Social robots are increasingly employed in assisting children with attention deficits such as in the autism spectrum. Furthermore, this entry addresses related ethical issues that come with introducing robots in the classroom from the perspective of various stakeholders. This new generation of communication tools opens up new horizons for highly relevant media psychological research.