ROBOMO: Effects of a Motivational Intervention to Adress the Barriers During Science Learning

Abstract

Social robots are regarded as convenient tools in education due to their capabilities of improving knowledge acquisition. Using cognitive dissonance as a teaching tool has been popular in STEM learning too. This paper presents a design for a cutting-edge different experiments where we describe a procedure that induces cognitive dissonance and different conditions that may boost the student's ability to overcome the STEM learning barriers. In our first experiment, we verified whether the STEM exercises that we will use for the future experiments may lead to the cognitive dissonance. Then, we tested whether using a motivational source (box containing a tablet) may encourage the student to strive for answering STEM exercises that were previously answered incorrectly. Cracking a joke has been proved to release the students from cognitive laziness. That is why, in our third experiment, we tested whether using an explicit joke or an implicit joke is better to encourage the student continue with answering the STEM exercises. As many researchers highlight the persuasive messages strategies usefulness in manipulating people towards new behaviors, in our fourth experiment, we managed to test whether using an implicit or an explicit persuasive message strategy is better. We compared as well whether it is better to use a joke or a persuasive message strategy to encourage the student continue with reanswering STEM exercises that were previously answered incorrectly. Finally, in our last study, we manipulated three factors which are the interaction level (dynamic or static), agency (a robot or a mascot) and timing (during or before gamma window) to choose finally the best combination boosting the student's strive for science learning.