Supporting Productivity Skill Development in College Students through Social Robot Coaching: A Proof-of-Concept

Abstract: College students often face academic challenges that hamper their productivity and well-being. Although self-help books and productivity apps are popular, they often fall short. Books provide generalized, non-interactive guidance, and apps are not inherently educational and can hinder the development of key organizational skills. Traditional productivity coaching offers personalized support, but is resource-intensive and difficult to scale. In this study, we present a proof-of-concept for a socially assistive robot (SAR) as an educational coach and a potential solution to the limitations of existing productivity tools and coaching approaches. The SAR delivers six different lessons on time management and task prioritization. Users interact via a chat interface, while the SAR responds through speech (with a toggle option). An integrated dashboard monitors progress, mood, engagement, confidence per lesson, and time spent per lesson. It also offers personalized productivity insights to foster reflection and self-awareness. We evaluated the system with 15 college students, achieving a System Usability Score of 79.2 and high ratings for overall experience and engagement. Our findings suggest that SAR-based productivity coaching can offer an effective and scalable solution to improve productivity among college students.