IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TALE-BOT ROBOT FOR DEVELOPING EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IN PLANNING AND ORGANISATION: PILOT TEST
2025
Executive functions (EF) are a set of essential skills involved in all daily activities, allowing individuals to adapt to their surroundings.These skills, which are fundamental for behaviour control and regulation, require specific attention within the educational field.Among these EF skills, planning and organisation stand out, referring to the ability to anticipate and structure future events and goals.Learning through robotics could represent an effective methodology for fostering planning and organisation skills in primary school students.Currently, among the available floor robots for this purpose is the Tale-Bot robot.This robot contains directional symbols that allow users to programme its routes, provides instant voice feedback, and has the capability to record narrations.For activity development, 10 x 10 cm grid playmats are used.In this context, the present research aims to evaluate improvements in the executive skill of planning and organisation in a primary school pupil following the implementation of a protocol based on the use of the Tale-Bot floor robot.To achieve this general objective, a methodology based on a quantitative approach with a single-case quasi-experimental design, using pretest and posttest, will be implemented.For this design, the sample was intentionally selected in a non-probabilistic manner, comprising a 7-year-old female pupil.Specifically, the BRIEF®-2 (Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2) was used as the instrument to measure planning and organisation skills.The intervention was conducted in a state-subsidised school in Alicante, Spain.As for the procedure, it consisted of five individual sessions of 30 minutes each, where activities based on challenges were carried out using the "Let's go to the zoo" playmat.During the sessions, the pupil was required to programme the robot's route according to the previously provided challenge.The results showed an increase in scores on the clinical scale of planning and organisation.In conclusion, these findings suggest that the Tale-Bot robot activity protocol could be a potentially beneficial educational approach for developing this executive function.