Impact of Negotiating the Number of Solved Problems by a Robot on Junior High School Students in Collaborative Learning

In recent years, educational-support robots that assist learners in learning have attracted much attention. We focus on learning situations with robots where learners learn by solving problems. Conventionally, robots have a predefined number of problems for a learner to solve (hereinafter referred to as “the number of solved problems”), making it difficult for the robot to respond to the desire of the learner to learn. This makes it difficult to realize long-term collaborative learning with robots; thus, it is important to create a learning environment in which learners can learn spontaneously and are motivated to learn. We propose a “problem-number negotiation method,” in which the learner decides the number of solved problems while conversing with the robot before the start of learning. For the robot to achieve an appropriate conversational tone in this method, a conversational tone based on politeness theory was adopted. The proposed method was compared with that of a conventional robot to determine whether the proposed method increases the number of solved problems. Results showed that junior high school students spontaneously solved more problems with the robot equipped with the proposed method than with the conventional robot during short-term learning.