Following the white rabbit: a robot rabbit as vocabulary trainer for beginners of English

  • Authors:

  • Sabrina Eimler;Astrid Von Der Pütten;Ulrich Schächtle;Lucas Carstens;Nicole Krämer

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Social Psychology, Media and Communication, Duisburg, Germany;University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Social Psychology, Media and Communication, Duisburg, Germany;University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Social Psychology, Media and Communication, Duisburg, Germany;University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Social Psychology, Media and Communication, Duisburg, Germany;University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Social Psychology, Media and Communication, Duisburg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • USAB'10 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on HCI in work and learning, life and leisure: workgroup human-computer interaction and usability engineering
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

The current paper presents a case study conducted to evaluate the robot rabbit Nabaztag functioning as a vocabulary trainer for beginners of English. Hedonic aspects and motivating function, as well as the general usability and overall impression evoked by rabbit, were tested. A group of 18 5th grade students of an English class at a German junior high school were instructed to practice 20 pairs of vocabulary. Ten students were assisted by the speaking robot rabbit, while eight learned by applying an ordinary paper-and-pencil method. Results show that after one week, students who had learned with the Nabaztag had, on average, a higher recall than the control group. Moreover, the evaluation of the hedonic and pragmatic quality of interacting with the rabbit was high, as was the evaluation of both ease of use and perceived usefulness. Students learning with the rabbit were in a better mood afterwards than those who learned by means of the traditional method.