WueDive: Robot-supported Tutoring

WueDive is a project aimed at advancing digital education. Through the establishment of a Digital Higher Education Hub, it initiates and coordinates engagement with new learning demands and opportunities.

By supporting hands-on project work, we strengthen digital competencies among instructors and students, thereby fostering networking and exchange within a professional learning community.

At the heart of the "Robot-Assisted Tutoring" project is the ongoing development of an existing robot-based tutoring system. For ten semesters, this tutoring has been offered as an optional supplement to students in the Media Informatics 1 and 2 lectures, using the social robot Pepper. Pepper helps students review and practice course content by providing adaptive feedback and explanations tailored to their learning progress. Initially, the program was developed and its effectiveness researched. For the past three semesters, it has been offered independently of research activities (more information is available in this article by the University of Würzburg).

The positive impact is evident in two key areas:
First, participants achieve significantly better exam scores — a finding confirmed by five separate studies.
Second, the tutoring offerings see high levels of usage: in the winter semester, 37% of exam participants took part regularly; in the summer semester of 2024, participation rose to 50%.

The project addresses challenges in higher education, such as the lack of individual support and regular feedback. Its primary goal is to support students in their learning, boost their motivation, and increase their enjoyment of learning in order to help them achieve better academic outcomes.

To enhance the tutoring system, several improvements are being implemented — including the integration of student feedback from previous semesters and the addition of ChatGPT to assist with open-ended questions. Furthermore, a programming interface is being developed that will allow instructors without programming experience to use the system in other courses, supporting further scalability of the application.

More information on the didactic perspective, transferability, interdisciplinarity, and relevant literature can be found on the WueDive website.