Interactive robot as classroom learning host to enhance audience participation in digital learning theater

Student audiences in drama-based learning classrooms must concentrate on the learning content of drama performance. Teachers spend much effort on teaching and classroom management, but less on student audience participation. To address this issue, this study proposes a digital theater environment with a robot to explore how the robot can interact with students while performing drama-based activities in the digital theater to improve students' engagement and help them to learn. A quasi-experimental study was conducted and 50 third-grade students from a local junior high school were involved in this study for six weeks. The results show that the learning performance of the experimental group is significantly better than that of the control group. Moreover, the results of questionnaires reveal that the interactive robot can enhance students' interest in learning and help them put concentration more on learning in digital learning theater.