Teachers’ Perception for Integrating Educational Robots and Use as Teaching Assistants in Thai Primary Schools

This study focused on teachers’ perception for integrating educational robots into learning and the feedback of teachers and students who used an education robot prototype as a part of learning. Data were collected from 510 primary school teachers who were used in a confirmatory analysis of factor model. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicated a good fit with a six-factor model in the observed data, which could be presented through six dimensions of robotic education quality, including social interaction, cognitive function, teaching method, learner characteristics, main features, and content. The prototype-testing phase was carried out using 5th grade students at a primary school in Thailand. The robot was tested for 10 hours, which included 20 students participating in the focus group. The research results showed that integrating the six dimensions of robotic education into the educational robot prototype resulted in a strong positive improvement in the focus groups learners’ behavior and supported the instructors during the learning process. In contrast, some teachers lacked experience and confidence with robots integrated with LMS, which caused challenging obstacles in teaching. The results were achieved when integrating the six-factor model into education robots to improve student learning. Future researchers should expand their studies to look into the opportunities and challenges that teachers and school administrators face in the classroom. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-SP1-09 Full Text: PDF

Use of Robots to Help Students With Diverse Needs

In most countries, the student population in schools continues to grow more diverse, and the unique learning needs of the students are recognized. In this respect, it is crucial to ensure that policies foster educational outcomes for all students, not just an average general education student. Since working on robots is very stimulating for especially young students, allowing them to develop key skills that will help them be successful during their school years and beyond in terms of problem-solving, creativity, scientific approach, and team spirit, robots are becoming more popular as an educational platform. For that reason, many types of robots are being involved in education. Robots with different features and capabilities, such as simple robots or socially interactive robots, are used in education, and usually, objectives and targets of a study and age group of students dictate the choices regarding robots. Considering the different roles of robots in education, in this chapter, the use of robots in the education of students with diverse needs is reviewed.