cs.ROMar 31, 2026

Play-Testing REMind: Evaluating an Educational Robot-Mediated Role-Play Game

Authors: Elaheh Sanoubari, Neil Fernandes, Keith Rebello, Alicia Pan, Andrew Houston, Kerstin Dautenhahn

Organizations: Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada · Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada · Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo, Canada

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Abstract

This paper presents REMind, an innovative educational robot-mediated role-play game designed to support anti-bullying bystander intervention among children. REMind invites players to observe a bullying scenario enacted by social robots, reflect on the perspectives of the characters, and rehearse defending strategies by puppeteering a robotic avatar. We evaluated REMind through a mixed-methods play-testing study with 18 children aged 9--10. The findings suggest that the experience supported key learning goals related to self-efficacy, perspective-taking, understanding outcomes of defending, and intervention strategies. These results highlight the promise of Robot-Mediated Applied Drama (RMAD) as a novel pedagogical framework to support Social-Emotional Learning.

Figures & tables

Fig. 1 : REMind engages players in role-playing with three social robots to practice anti-bullying bystander intervention.
Fig. 2 : Three Robot Characters in REMind.
Fig. 3 : Experiment room layout.
Fig. 4 : Self-efficacy for defending increased post-intervention. Boxes show the interquartile range (IQR); whiskers extend to 1.5× IQR.
Fig. 5 : Post-test responses reflected more accurate expectations about defending outcomes. Red and blue lines mark bully- and victim-related targets, respectively.
Fig. 6 : (a) Empathy scores before and after the intervention. No significant change was observed. (b) Relationship between empathy toward humans and the robot avatar.
Fig. 7 : Player interaction in REMind demonstrating an example of multi-robot drama facilitating perspective-taking.
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