The influence of head size in mobile remote presence (MRP) educational robots

In this paper, we examined how the presentation of a remote participant (in our context the remote teacher) in a mobile remote presence (MRP) system affects social interaction, such as closeness and engagement. Using ROBOSEM, a MRP robot, we explored the effect of the presentation of the remote teacher´s head size shown on ROBOSEM´s screen at three different levels: small, medium, and large. We hypothesized that a medium sized head of the remote teacher shown on the MRP system would be better than a small or large sized head in terms of closeness, engagement, and learning. Our preliminary study results suggest that the size of a remote teacher´s head may have an impact on “students´ perception of the remote teacher´s closeness” and on “students´ engagement”. However, we did not observe any difference in terms of “learning”.