Social robots are increasingly being studied in educational roles, including as tutees inlearning-by-teaching applications. To explore the benefits and drawbacks of using robots in this way, it is important to study how robot tutees compare to traditional learning-by-teaching situations.

In this paper, we report the results of a within-subjects field experiment that compared a robot tutee to a human tutee in a Swedish primary school. Sixth-grade students participated in the study as tutors in a collaborative mathematics game where they were responsible for teaching a robot tutee as well as a third-grade student in two separate sessions. Their teacher was present to provide support and guidance for both sessions. Participants’ perceptions of the interactions were then gathered through a set of quantitative instruments measuring their enjoyment and willingness to interact with the tutees again, communication and collaboration with the tutees, their understanding of the task, sense of autonomy as tutors, and perceived learning gains for tutor and tutee.

The results showed that the two scenarios were comparable with respect to enjoyment and willingness to play again, as well as perceptions of learning gains. However, significant differences were found for communication and collaboration, which participants considered easier with a human tutee. They also felt significantly less autonomous in their roles as tutors with the robot tutee as measured by their stated need for their teacher’s help. Participants further appeared to perceive the activity as somewhat clearer and working better when playing with the human tutee.

These findings suggest that childrencan enjoy engaging in peer tutoring with a robot tutee. However, the interactive capabilities of robots will need to improve quite substantially before they can potentially engage in autonomous and unsupervised interactions with children.