Comprehensive sex education (SE) is crucial in promoting sexual health and responsible behavior among students, particularly in elementary schools. Despite its significance, teaching SE can be challenging due to students' attitudes, shyness, and emotional barriers. Socially assistive robots (SARs) sometimes are perceived as more trustworthy than humans, based on research showing that they are not anticipated as judgmental. Inspired by those evidences, this study aims to assess the success of a SAR as a facilitator for SE lessons for elementary school students. This study conducted two experiments to assess the effectiveness of a SAR in facilitating SE education for elementary school students. We conducted two experiments, a) a group activity in the school classroom where the Nao robot gave a SE lecture, and we evaluated how much information the students acquired from the lecture, and b) an individual activity where the students interacted 1:1 with the robot, and we evaluated their attitudes towards the subject of SE, and if they felt comfortable to ask SE related questions to the robot. Data collected from pre- and post-questionnaires, as well as video annotations, revealed that the SAR significantly improved students' attitudes toward SE. Furthermore, students were more open to asking SE-related questions to the robot than their human teacher. The study emphasized specific SAR characteristics, such as embodiment and non-judgmental behavior, as key factors contributing to their effectiveness in supporting SE education, paving the way for innovative and effective approaches to sexual education in schools.

翻译：综合性教育对于促进学生特别是小学生的性健康与负责任行为至关重要。尽管意义重大，但由于学生的态度、羞怯心理及情感障碍，性教育教学常面临挑战。研究表明，社会辅助机器人因不被预期具有评判性，有时被认为比人类更值得信赖。受此启发，本研究旨在评估社会辅助机器人作为小学生性教育课程辅助工具的有效性。我们开展了两个实验：a) 在教室进行的群体活动中，Nao机器人进行性教育讲座，并评估学生从讲座中获取的知识量；b) 在个体活动中，学生与机器人进行一对一互动，评估其对性教育主题的态度，以及是否愿意向机器人提出性教育相关问题。通过前后测问卷及视频标注数据发现，社会辅助机器人显著改善了学生对性教育的态度。此外，学生更倾向于向机器人而非人类教师提出性教育相关问题。研究强调了社会辅助机器人的具身化与非评判性行为等特定特征，是支持性教育有效性的关键因素，为学校性教育提供了创新且有效的实施路径。