“iRobiQ”: the influence of bidirectional interaction on kindergarteners’ reading motivation, literacy, and behavior

Abstract

This study focused on an intelligent robot which was viewed as a language teaching/learning tool to improve children’s reading ability, reading interest, and learning behavior. The iRobiQ, with its multimedia contents, was employed to encourage children to read, speak, and answer questions. Fifty-seven pre-kindergarteners participated in this study, and they were divided into an experimental group (30 children using iRobiQ) and a control group (27 children using a tablet-PC). After 2 months of experiments, the reading ability of the experimental group was better than that of the control group. It was found that using iRobiQ as a learning tool had many advantages, for example, the enhancement of learners’ reading literacy, in comparison with the use of tablet-PC. In this study, there were three interesting findings: (1) iRobiQ is a more effective learning companion as compared to tablet-PC; (2) iRobiQ is a bidirectional interactive toy; and (3) iRobiQ can foster and promote the peer collaboration and competition because it has intriguing characteristics, particularly its communicative and interactive functions. The bidirectional interactive robots allow pre-kindergarten teachers to create more active and interactive learning environment for children and provide the children with more various learning contents.

Keywords:

• reading literacy
• learning companions
• bidirectional interaction
• Chinese language learning
• reading behavior

Acknowledgements

This research is particularly supported by “Aim for the Top University Project” of the National Taiwan Normal University, the Ministry of Education, and the National Science Council(No.101-2511-S-003-035-, No.98-2511-S-003-024-MY3), Taiwan, R.O.C.

Notes

1. Bidirectional interaction in this study is defined as the situation where children can receive suitable feedback when operating the learning tools (i.e., iRobiQ or tablet-PC), and, at the same time, iRobiQ makes reaction for children's responses. For example, when touching the screen on the iRobiQ or tablet-PC, then they can obtain learning contents, such as animations or pictures, appearing on the screen immediately. Through the sight and sound effects of the LEDs and the movement, iRobiQ allows children to interact with it and obtain immediate feedback from it.

2. Since New Taipei is adjacent to Taipei, people living in the two cities share the same traffic system and even have the same life activities. New Taipei City surrounds Taipei City and like Taipei, it is also a major city of business industries. Today's New Taipei City has become one of the newest cabinet levels of municipality of the Republic of China which is equivalent to Taipei City.