Welcome to the University! Students' Orientation Activity Mediated by a Social Robot.

For over a decade, orientation programs have been exercised to support students transitioning from K-12 to higher education. These programs have evolved over the years to be vital intervention services that can help diverse students to acclimate and improve their transition to higher education. Nowadays, with the advance in technology, social robots (SRs) can be used to mediate content in such orientation events. Overall, SRs can help build innovative orientation processes and enhance educational interactions that aim at optimized results. In this study, we outline the design, development and experiment of an orientation activity focused on one of the essential skills students need to be successful in their academic life - teamwork through problem-based learning (PBL). This orientation activity is mediated by a human-like SR- NAO. The experiment included an activity conducted at the campus of an academic institution located in Israel. Four first-year students volunteered to participate in an experiment and another five of their peers watched the activity. As the activity was concluded, all nine students were asked about their overall assessment of the activity, and the added value of the NAO as a mediator in the current and future activity focused on PBL orientation conducted by teams. The results on the feasibility of NAO as a motivating tutor were very encouraging. We believe that this study marks the first step in developing a generic plan of action for orientation processes mediated by a SR.