Designing and Testing Companion Robots to Support Informal, In-home STEM Learning

未来的教育机器人正在成为支持学习的社会伙伴。通过与这样的机器人进行社交互动，学习者可以潜在地推理和谈论他们正在学习的东西，并在看到STEM在日常生活中的相关性方面获得帮助。然而，人们对如何设计教育机器人在家中与青少年长期合作知之甚少。该项目将与当地社区中心合作，为对科学兴趣不大的年轻人开发一个非正式的科学学习计划，称为STEMMates。该计划将与家庭学习伴侣机器人合作，旨在与青少年一起阅读书籍，并在社区中心为他们提供科学活动，青少年将参与令人兴奋的和个人相关的科学学习。当学习者阅读书籍时，机器人会对书中发生的事情做出评论，以帮助将阅读与社区中心的科学活动联系起来。STEM Mates的总体目标是：（a）积极支持青年个人对科学和未来科学学习的兴趣;（B）将家庭学习经验与校外社区学习相结合;（c）弥合正式和非正式参与和学习科学之间的差距;（d）鼓励代表性不足和对STEM学习兴趣不大的青年参与。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中为公众设计和开发STEM学习机会的新方法和基于证据的理解。研究人员将与社区中心的青年和工作人员合作，与非正式科学学习专家一起，设计程序，然后测试学习者对机器人阅读和参与科学活动的反应，以及该程序是否对他们的科学兴趣产生持久的影响。与机器人的社交互动可能有助于在学习活动中分配认知负荷，以帮助青少年对STEM进行推理，并通过改善价值感和归属感来补充学习，以促进持久的兴趣发展。本研究采用定性与定量相结合的研究方法，探讨以下研究问题：（1）在非正式的、家庭式的、强化的阅读和科学活动计划中，哪些社会和兴趣发展支持和活动可以作为社会情境兴趣的支架来促进低兴趣学习者对科学的兴趣和学习？社交机器人如何才能最好地促进该计划？(2)学习者如何在真实的、家庭的、长期的情况下感知机器人并与之互动，这种互动如何随着时间的推移而变化？(3)与干预前的基线相比，与设计有社会定位兴趣支架的机器人一起工作是否会增加个人对科学的兴趣，这些影响是否会影响未来（长期）的兴趣和对正式科学学习的参与？为了回答这些研究问题，研究人员将在为期11周的夏季部署期间实施科学学习计划，并利用AB单案例研究设计。以访谈为基础的定性数据和自我报告调查，以检查学习者？的机器人的看法和他们不断变化的兴趣，在科学和科学学习的定量数据使用前/后测量比较将被收集。机器人还将收集任务完成时间、阅读率、书籍选择和阅读目标达成情况的日志数据。该项目的成果将为未来针对不同学习人群的社交机器人设计及其在不同非正式学习环境中的使用进行调查奠定基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Future educational robots are emerging as social companions supporting learning. By socially interacting with such a robot, learners can potentially reason and talk about the things they are learning and receive help in seeing the relevance of STEM in their daily lives. However, little is known about how to design educational robots to work with youth at home over a long period of time. This project will develop an informal science learning program, called STEMMates, in collaboration with a local community center, for youth with little interest in science. The program will partner learners with an in-home learning companion robot, designed to read books with youth and provide science activities for them at the community center, where youth will engage in exciting and personally relevant science learning. As the learner reads books, the robot will make comments about what is happening in the book to help connect the reading to the science activities at the community center. The overarching goals of STEMMates are to: (a) positively support youth's individual interest in science and future science learning, (b) connect in-home learning experiences with out-of-school community-based learning, (c) bridge the gap between formal and informal engagement and learning in science, and (d) encourage the participation of youth who are underrepresented and who have low interest in STEM learning. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments.Researchers will work with youth and staff at the community center, alongside experts in informal science learning, to design the program and then test how learners respond to reading with the robot and participating in the science activities and whether this program has a lasting impact on their science interest. Social interactions with a robot may help distribute cognitive load during learning activities to help youth reason about STEM and also supplement learning by improving feelings of value and belongingness in order to facilitate lasting interest development. Following a mixed-methods research approach using qualitative and quantitative data-collection techniques, the research team will investigate the following research questions: (1) What social and interest-development supports and activities can be utilized as socially situated interest scaffolds in an informal and in-home, augmented reading and science activity program to promote individual interest and learning in science for low interest learners? How can a social robot best facilitate this program? (2) How do learners perceive and interact with the robot in authentic, in-home, long-term situations, and how does this interaction change over time? (3) Does working with a robot designed with socially situated interest scaffolds increase individual interest in science when compared to a pre-intervention baseline, and do these effects impact future (long-term) interest and engagement in formal science learning? To answer these research questions, researchers will implement the science learning program during an 11-week summer deployment and utilize an AB single-case research design. Interview-based qualitative data and self-report surveys to examine the learner?s perception of the robot and their evolving interest in science and quantitative data on science learning using pre-/post-measure comparisons will be collected. Log data of time-on-task, reading rate, book selection and reading goal attainment will also be collected by the robot. The outcomes of this project will lay the groundwork for future investigations of the design of social robots for a diversity of learner populations and their use in different informal learning settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.