The positive effects of verbal encouragement in mathematics education using a social robot
Open accessAbstract
Studies have shown that the use of verbal encouragement strategies in education is able to maximize learning. This idea is derived from traditional classroom settings where teachers use a multitude of behavioral strategies to maintain the students' level of engagement. Motivated by these educational practices, we discuss the use of a Socially Interactive Robotic Tutor (SIRT) that incorporates a variety of verbal cues into multiple math learning scenarios. In this paper, we present the robotic tutor, the methods used to engage students in the learning scenario, and results from integrating the robotic tutor in the classroom environment. Results derived from 44 students engaging with SIRT during a tablet-based math test show that, when compared to non-interactive methods, verbal cues are able to increase and/or maintain student engagement regardless of student age and math content level.
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Physically embodied robots provide adaptive assistance and verbal interaction similar to virtual or conversational agents, yet they foster greater engagement with the physical environment and encourage more advanced social behaviors during learning, leading to improved learning outcomes.
“Physically embodied robots provide adaptive assistance and verbal interaction similar to virtual or conversational agents [5, 46, 63, 65], yet they foster greater engagement with the physical environment and encourage more advanced social behaviors during learning [2], leading to improved learning outcomes [47].”
From SET-PAiREd: Designing for Parental Involvement in Learning with an AI-Assisted Educational Robot (2025) · cites this paper as [5]
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- Authors
- Brown, L. N., & Howard, A. M.
- Affiliations
- Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
- ORCID
- Howard, Ayanna M.
- Venue
- 2014 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2014-03
- Pages
- 1-5
- OpenAlex
- W1965002790
- Cited by
- 71
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 5.23
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC) (publishedVersion)
- SMARTech Repository (Georgia Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1148903, 1208287)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Educational Robotics and Engineering
- Keywords
- verbal encouragement, social robots, mathematics education, student engagement, tablet-based learning, classroom technology integration, age differences in learning
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