An Initial Investigation into the Use of Social Robots within an Existing Educational Program for Students with Learning Disabilities

Students with a learning disability (LD) generally require supplementary one-to-one instruction and support to acquire the foundational academic skills learned at school. Because learning is more difficult for students with LD, students can frequently display off-task behaviours to avoid attempting or completing challenging learning tasks. Re-directing students back to their learning task is a frequent strategy used by educators to support students. However, there have been limited studies investigating the use of assistive technology to support student re-direction, specifically in a "real-world" educational setting. In this in situ study, we investigate the impact of integrating socially assistive robot to provide re-direction strategies to students. A social robot, QT, was employed within the existing learning program during one-to-one remedial instruction sessions. The study comprised two phases, "Instruction as usual" (IAU) and "Robot-mediated instructions" (RMI). Both followed the students one-to-one instructional program where students get personalised learning support from their instructors, except for the RMI phase which included a social robot as a tool. We investigated the impact of the robot on students on-task behaviours and progress towards learning goals. The results of our mixed method analysis suggest that the robotic intervention supported students in staying on-task and completing their learning goal.