While the efficacy of social robots in supporting people in learning tasks has been extensively investigated, their potential impact in assisting students in self-studying contexts has not been investigated much. This study explores how a social robot can act as a peer study companion for college students during self-study tasks by delivering task-oriented goal reminder and positive emotional support. We conducted an exploratory Wizard-of-Oz study to explore how these robotic support behaviors impacted students' perceived focus, productivity, and engagement in comparison to a robot that only provided physical presence (control). Our study results suggest that participants in the goal reminder and the emotional support conditions reported greater ease of use, with the goal reminder condition additionally showing a higher willingness to use the robot in future study sessions. Participants' satisfaction with the robot was correlated with their perception of the robot as a social other, and this perception was found to be a predictor for their level of goal achievement in the self-study task. These findings highlight the potential of socially assistive robots to support self-study through both functional and emotional engagement.

翻译：尽管社交机器人在支持人们完成学习任务方面的效能已得到广泛研究，但其在协助学生进行自主学习情境中的潜在影响尚未得到充分探讨。本研究探讨了社交机器人如何在大学生自主学习任务中扮演同伴学习伙伴的角色，通过提供任务导向的目标提醒和积极的情感支持。我们开展了一项探索性的 Wizard-of-Oz 研究，以探究这些机器人支持行为如何影响学生感知的专注度、生产力和参与度，并与仅提供物理存在（对照组）的机器人进行比较。研究结果表明，处于目标提醒和情感支持条件下的参与者报告了更高的易用性，其中目标提醒条件还显示出在未来学习会话中更愿意使用该机器人的倾向。参与者对机器人的满意度与其将机器人视为社会性存在的感知相关，而这一感知被发现是其自主学习任务中目标达成水平的预测因子。这些发现凸显了社交辅助机器人通过功能性和情感性参与来支持自主学习的潜力。