Teaching social robots: the effect of robot mistakes on children's learning-through-teaching

• DOI: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1526486
• Publication Date: 2025-03-19T07:11:18Z
• Authors: Celina K. Bowman-...; Charlotte Aitken; Thuvaraka Mahenth...; Edith Law; Elizabeth S. Nilsen

Social robots are increasingly being designed for use in educational contexts, including the role of a tutee. However, little is known about how robot behavior affects children's learning-through-teaching. We examined whether frequency and type mistakes affected teaching behaviors (basic advanced), subsequent learning, when social robot. Eight to 11-year-olds ( N = 114) taught novel classification scheme humanoid Children that either made no mistakes, typical (errors on untaught material; accuracy previously material), or atypical material). Following teaching, knowledge was assessed, they evaluated their own both robot's learning. generated more strategies working with one mistakes. While children indicated learned better than themselves demonstrated most learning gains if who showed but did not account advantage mistake