Co-Design and User Evaluation of a Robotic Mental Well-Being Coach

What is it about?

Public speaking anxiety is one of the most common subtypes of social anxiety and is a prevalent concern among university students. Many students experience excessive anxiety when giving presentations in front of other people, which can negatively impact their academic performance and overall mental well-being. With limited access to human coaches and interventions, there is a need for innovative technological solutions, including social robots, to extend and enhance mental health support and accessibility. In this paper, we first outline a co-design study with five mental health professionals and a participatory design study with six university students, aiming to design a robotic mental well-being coach to help university students manage public speaking anxiety. Afterwards, we detail a user study with 50 university students to evaluate the usability and acceptability of the developed robotic mental well-being coach system. The findings showed that the robotic coach system, which includes the robot and a tablet, received a usability score of 84.05 and had high acceptability among participants who perceived the robot as knowledgeable and competent. Moreover, participants’ self-reported moods significantly improved following the study. Overall, conducting qualitative and quantitative analyses in this study yields promising results on the potential use of robotic coaches to help university students manage their public speaking anxiety.

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Why is it important?

This research is important because it tackles the widespread issue of public speaking anxiety among university students—a condition that can hinder academic success and well-being. With limited access to human coaches, the study offers an innovative solution by developing a robotic mental well-being coach. Co-designed with mental health professionals and students, the system was found to be highly usable and acceptable, significantly improving participants’ self-reported moods. These findings highlight the potential of social robots as scalable, accessible tools to support student mental health. This paper offers practical insights for roboticists and HCI/HRI researchers on designing intelligent agents for mental health support and highlight their potential as scalable, accessible tools for promoting student well-being.