Educational Robotics and Game-Based Interventions for Overcoming Dyscalculia: A Pilot Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

"Traditional interventions for dyscalculia primarily involve structured, repetitive exercises designed to strengthen numerical cognition. However, emerging research highlights the potential of educational robotics and game-based learning as innovative, engaging, and effective approaches [9]" The second sentence should make it more clear that "however" is contrasting in the context of dyscalculia. The introduction otherwise provides sufficient background to understand dyscalculia and the approach taken.

"The participants were students among 10 and 13 years old" should be "between 10 and 13 years old". Line 144 opens a parenthesis that is not closed. More information about the participants' demographics and setting would be desirable to help readers understand the population this result came from. You can drop "In fact," from "In fact, formal consent was signed", it makes it sound like this should be surprising to the reader.

Did any of the students in the study have dyscalculia or other mathematical learning disabilities? This may be a good intervention for mathematics education in general, but a claim specifically targeting a single learning disability should require actually evaluating it with a significant sample of students with that learning disability. As the authors noted, we must "address the unique cognitive challenges faced by students with dyscalculia". The abstract notes "among whom only a specific group had been diagnosed with dyscalculia", but this is not mentioned in the participants section.

"the latest empirical evidence regarding interventions for dyscalculia" likely needs a newer reference or to drop "latest". There have been additional empirical studies since 2011.

Figures should be used to allow the reader to visualize the activities. While images of the participants in action (as they are young children) are understandably not included, the robotics platforms as used in class, software, visual cues, and/or other parts of the intervention may be presented as figures.

The "Technology and response" section needs significant expansion. What software was used? Was it custom made for this intervention? Is it available to other educators who wish to replicate your work?

"These students participated in hands-on activities using programmable robots designed to reinforce numerical concepts, arithmetic operations, and problem-solving strategies. The robotics-based curriculum incorporated game-based learning elements, interactive challenges, and real-world problem-solving scenarios to enhance engagement and motivation." But what were the activities? We can assume any educational robotics activity is hands-on and interactive, but we can't extrapolate from this what the students actually did in the intervention. In order to inform future interventions, we need more information.

The overall study design seems fine, it's simply that many elements of it need to be communicated to the reader.

The Results section needs significant work in both content and presentation. It begins with some statistics presented without any information about what they refer to. Figures and tables should be cleaner, labeled, and captioned. With the data made available I was able to determine the unlabeled tables are the "sum of data". It is not clear why this data was summed in this way or what the responses in the sheets of the data are, as they include values of 0 which were not allowed in the survey. What the pie chart in figure 1 refers to is also unclear, although an explanation of what the categories may be is found later in the text. Another pie chart (not labeled as a figure) has a mangled mess where two 0% categories overlap. Figure 2 has a y-axis that does not match the labeled data. Insufficient information is given to determine if the listed "Increase in Numerical Skills" is relative, absolute, or incorrect. 

Additionally, the results should be analyzed further. Were there differences between classes? Between students with a known learning disability and without?

"structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents" are mentioned but results and analysis seem to be missing entirely. They had "valuable observations", so please share them with us! Was coding performed on the interviews?

Limitations of the study should be discussed more in depth. Response bias is given a quick mention in the "Discussion" section, but what other biases could apply to this work? The "Limitations and implications for future research" section largely restates the study design, and then presents future work.

The Discussion section is very heavy on semi-relevant citations to other work, it should focus on this work's results primarily. Similar with the Conclusion section, there is no rule that every paragraph needs a citation tacked onto the end of it. Many of these citations appear to be in error, for example, "Comparative studies across different age groups and educational levels would also be beneficial in determining the most effective implementation strategies" has a citation for "Predictive Processing in Cognitive Robotics: a Review", which is not only unnecessary but also irrelevant. Given this, all citations should be reevaluated for relevance.

Author Response

• "Traditional interventions for dyscalculia primarily involve structured, repetitive exercises designed to strengthen numerical cognition. However, emerging research highlights the potential of educational robotics and game-based learning as innovative, engaging, and effective approaches [9]" The second sentence should make it more clear that "however" is contrasting in the context of dyscalculia. The introduction otherwise provides sufficient background to understand dyscalculia and the approach taken.

 

We have revised the sentence to explicitly clarify the limitations of traditional interventions for students with dyscalculia and to better contextualize the advantages of robotics and game-based learning. This modification reinforces the rationale behind adopting alternative educational strategies and improves the overall coherence of the paragraph

 

• "The participants were students among 10 and 13 years old" should be "between 10 and 13 years old". Line 144 opens a parenthesis that is not closed. More information about the participants' demographics and setting would be desirable to help readers understand the population this result came from. You can drop "In fact," from "In fact, formal consent was signed", it makes it sound like this should be surprising to the reader.

We have revised everything, thanks

 

• Did any of the students in the study have dyscalculia or other mathematical learning disabilities? This may be a good intervention for mathematics education in general, but a claim specifically targeting a single learning disability should require actually evaluating it with a significant sample of students with that learning disability. As the authors noted, we must "address the unique cognitive challenges faced by students with dyscalculia". The abstract notes "among whom only a specific group had been diagnosed with dyscalculia", but this is not mentioned in the participants section.

 

We changed the section dedicated to participants, writing that in each group there were 1, 2 and 2 children with dyscalculia.

 

• "the latest empirical evidence regarding interventions for dyscalculia" likely needs a newer reference or to drop "latest". There have been additional empirical studies since 2011.

We delated “latest”

 

• Figures should be used to allow the reader to visualize the activities. While images of the participants in action (as they are young children) are understandably not included, the robotics platforms as used in class, software, visual cues, and/or other parts of the intervention may be presented as figures.

We added figures 1 and 2

 

• The "Technology and response" section needs significant expansion. What software was used? Was it custom made for this intervention? Is it available to other educators who wish to replicate your work?

We didn’t use any kind of software, the robot moves using sensors as we explained now in the paper (2.6.1 Description of Robotics-Based Activities)

 

• "These students participated in hands-on activities using programmable robots designed to reinforce numerical concepts, arithmetic operations, and problem-solving strategies. The robotics-based curriculum incorporated game-based learning elements, interactive challenges, and real-world problem-solving scenarios to enhance engagement and motivation." But what were the activities? We can assume any educational robotics activity is hands-on and interactive, but we can't extrapolate from this what the students actually did in the intervention. In order to inform future interventions, we need more information.

 

We added all the activities (2.6.1 Description of Robotics-Based Activities)

 

• The overall study design seems fine, it's simply that many elements of it need to be communicated to the reader.

 

• The Results section needs significant work in both content and presentation. It begins with some statistics presented without any information about what they refer to. Figures and tables should be cleaner, labeled, and captioned. With the data made available I was able to determine the unlabeled tables are the "sum of data". It is not clear why this data was summed in this way or what the responses in the sheets of the data are, as they include values of 0 which were not allowed in the survey. What the pie chart in figure 1 refers to is also unclear, although an explanation of what the categories may be is found later in the text. Another pie chart (not labeled as a figure) has a mangled mess where two 0% categories overlap. Figure 2 has a y-axis that does not match the labeled data. Insufficient information is given to determine if the listed "Increase in Numerical Skills" is relative, absolute, or incorrect. 

 

We Added precise figure captions to clearly indicate the content of each chart and ensure proper referencing. We ensured all data visualizations are now consistent, clean, and labeled. We revised the Results and Discussion sections to address clarity and structure. Specifically, we clarified what the key statistics refer to, repositioned quantitative summaries to improve narrative flow, and ensured visual figures are accurately labeled and matched to the textual analysis. We also reinforced the relevance of each data point by explicitly linking it to the study’s hypotheses and implications.

 

• Additionally, the results should be analyzed further. Were there differences between classes? Between students with a known learning disability and without?

 

Differences between subgroups (classes, students with/without LDs) are now discussed in participant’s section

 

• "structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents" are mentioned but results and analysis seem to be missing entirely. They had "valuable observations", so please share them with us! Was coding performed on the interviews?

Interview insights are integrated in limitations section, with clarification that thematic content analysis was used rather than formal coding.

• Limitations of the study should be discussed more in depth. Response bias is given a quick mention in the "Discussion" section, but what other biases could apply to this work? The "Limitations and implications for future research" section largely restates the study design, and then presents future work.

 

The limitations section has been deepened, acknowledging methodological and population-related constraints.

 

• The Discussion section is very heavy on semi-relevant citations to other work, it should focus on this work's results primarily. Similar with the Conclusion section, there is no rule that every paragraph needs a citation tacked onto the end of it. Many of these citations appear to be in error, for example, "Comparative studies across different age groups and educational levels would also be beneficial in determining the most effective implementation strategies" has a citation for "Predictive Processing in Cognitive Robotics: a Review", which is not only unnecessary but also irrelevant. Given this, all citations should be reevaluated for relevance.

We delated the citation and we rearranged the references

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is not well suited for the special edition. The paper's impact is more suited for a journal or venue in education, and in particular, some forum where research is addressing special circumstances, disabilities or special needs. There is no contribution in the field of robotics or human-robot interaction. No particular technique or innovation in human-robot interaction is proposed.
The paper reports on an intervention in secondary school where traditional mathematics delivery is contrasted with a delivery that combines robotics and game-playing.
The paper is focused on the evaluation of motivation by the students and the learning outcomes. Very little information is provided about the interface, the games, the robotics tasks or missions. More importantly, are the students required or face a more extensive curriculum that includes robotics concepts or programming skills? Are the robots just a part of some storytelling? The paper does not include details of these aspects.

While the paper is thorough about the methods and protocol of the intervention, it could be improved with a flow chart showing which participants faced which treatment and at which phases.

There are some concerns regarding reproducibility. Although the authors promise to release some materials online, it is clear that any other researcher would not have enough information to reproduce the research; moreover, the conditions are very peculiar regarding the school system and country, the curricula, the teachers, and even the participants. The paper would have been stronger if the researchers reproduced the work in several schools, some in another district, but all with the same curricula and age group.

Another concern is the pre-conditioning that participants or their families may have received, which would change their attitudes and motivation. A student or their parents may learn they are in the control group and not in the one doing "robotics", thus reinforcing the demotivation and math anxiety. Similarly, being in the "selected" group doing "robotics" may by itself be a source of motivation since at least they would be doing something different. The validity of the results is not addressed in the paper for this particular aspect.

The numbers in the study are very low to have some sense that this is indeed due to the tools and not to the fact that the students are doing at least something different than the tradition. The authors themselves admit that many further studies are required to reach more definite conclusions. I am surprised that they do not report any anomalies or not so many wonderful cases. Surely, there is one student who does not like robots, or some parent who does not like the proposed challenges of the robots, both for students with no issues in their development as well as the ones who do have issues with their development.

And again, reproducibility may be an issue here. Being the very first study, the teacher may have the technical support of the researchers in the project as they have a vested interest in observing some impact, but if this were performed at several distant schools with exactly the same resources for the control group as the treated group, would the results show such a difference? Note that there are always issues with using technology, which vary from sufficient and suitable computers with suitable operating systems to sufficient technical support for all the glitches that happen before a lesson. Such effort is not quantified in this paper.

Some aspects of the citations or style could be improved. For example, on Page 4, Line 104, the sentence "Recent research has explored how technology-enhanced learning approaches, particularly educational robotics and game-based learning, can support students with dyscalculia by fostering engagement, motivation, and numerical cognition" does not specify which researchers and neither provides a citation.

Author Response

This paper is not well suited for the special edition. The paper's impact is more suited for a journal or venue in education, and in particular, some forum where research is addressing special circumstances, disabilities or special needs. There is no contribution in the field of robotics or human-robot interaction. No particular technique or innovation in human-robot interaction is proposed.
The paper reports on an intervention in secondary school where traditional mathematics delivery is contrasted with a delivery that combines robotics and game-playing.
The paper is focused on the evaluation of motivation by the students and the learning outcomes. Very little information is provided about the interface, the games, the robotics tasks or missions. More importantly, are the students required or face a more extensive curriculum that includes robotics concepts or programming skills? Are the robots just a part of some storytelling? The paper does not include details of these aspects.

we have updated the manuscript to include several new details that directly address the concerns raised:

• Expanded Description of the Robotics Integration: We clarified the role of the robots in the learning process, specifying that students interacted with Ozobot Evo robots in activities involving geometry, arithmetic, powers, and factorization. The robots were not used merely as storytelling tools but were integrated into structured mathematical tasks, where students programmed or guided the robot using color codes tied to mathematical rules.
• Explanation of Robotics Tasks and Missions: The revised version now includes a detailed section outlining specific robotics-based activities (e.g., programming the robot to follow paths representing powers and prime factorization), providing insight into the procedural logic, materials, and objectives of each task.
• Clarification of the Educational Scope: While students were not trained in full programming curricula, the activities incorporated basic algorithmic thinking and problem-solving through color-coded instructions, allowing students with diverse learning profiles to engage with foundational computational logic in a concrete, accessible format.

 

While the paper is thorough about the methods and protocol of the intervention, it could be improved with a flow chart showing which participants faced which treatment and at which phases.

To improve clarity and support the reproducibility of our methodology, we have added a flowchart (Diagram 1) illustrating the structure of the intervention. This diagram provides a visual summary of the experimental design, detailing the participant allocation, intervention phases, and assessment points for both the control and robotics groups. It distinguishes the timelines for pre-tests, robotics/traditional sessions, post-tests, and follow-up assessments, enhancing the reader’s understanding of the experimental workflow.

There are some concerns regarding reproducibility. Although the authors promise to release some materials online, it is clear that any other researcher would not have enough information to reproduce the research; moreover, the conditions are very peculiar regarding the school system and country, the curricula, the teachers, and even the participants. The paper would have been stronger if the researchers reproduced the work in several schools, some in another district, but all with the same curricula and age group.

We added new information and we modified osf repository

Another concern is the pre-conditioning that participants or their families may have received, which would change their attitudes and motivation. A student or their parents may learn they are in the control group and not in the one doing "robotics", thus reinforcing the demotivation and math anxiety. Similarly, being in the "selected" group doing "robotics" may by itself be a source of motivation since at least they would be doing something different. The validity of the results is not addressed in the paper for this particular aspect. The numbers in the study are very low to have some sense that this is indeed due to the tools and not to the fact that the students are doing at least something different than the tradition. The authors themselves admit that many further studies are required to reach more definite conclusions. I am surprised that they do not report any anomalies or not so many wonderful cases. Surely, there is one student who does not like robots, or some parent who does not like the proposed challenges of the robots, both for students with no issues in their development as well as the ones who do have issues with their development.

We modified the limitations section

 

And again, reproducibility may be an issue here. Being the very first study, the teacher may have the technical support of the researchers in the project as they have a vested interest in observing some impact, but if this were performed at several distant schools with exactly the same resources for the control group as the treated group, would the results show such a difference? Note that there are always issues with using technology, which vary from sufficient and suitable computers with suitable operating systems to sufficient technical support for all the glitches that happen before a lesson. Such effort is not quantified in this paper.

we have clarified this point in both the Limitations and Methods sections, explicitly acknowledging that the technical support effort was not quantified and that future research should address this aspect.

 

Some aspects of the citations or style could be improved. For example, on Page 4, Line 104, the sentence "Recent research has explored how technology-enhanced learning approaches, particularly educational robotics and game-based learning, can support students with dyscalculia by fostering engagement, motivation, and numerical cognition" does not specify which researchers and neither provides a citation.

We added the citations

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1- In the introduction, the authors explained the importance of the subject, the studies on this subject and the contribution of this article in detail.

2- The authors adequately explained the materials and methods used in the second section.

3- The abbreviations used in the first and second sections should be written where they are first used to facilitate the understanding of the article.

4-Section-3.1 line 367-386 should be rewritten in a more understandable way.

5- Section-3.2 line 397-428 hould be rewritten in a more understandable way.

6-Caption should be written for Table-1.

7-Caption should be written for figure-1.

8-The results are discussed in detail.

 

Author Response

1- In the introduction, the authors explained the importance of the subject, the studies on this subject and the contribution of this article in detail.

2- The authors adequately explained the materials and methods used in the second section.

3- The abbreviations used in the first and second sections should be written where they are first used to facilitate the understanding of the article.

We modified the abbreviations

4-Section-3.1 line 367-386 should be rewritten in a more understandable way:

I couldn’t modify it because these are the questions that we asked to the students

5- Section-3.2 line 397-428 hould be rewritten in a more understandable way:

I couldn’t modify it because these are the questions that we asked to the students

6-Caption should be written for Table-1.

We wrote a new caption

7-Caption should be written for figure-1.

We wrote a new caption

 

8-The results are discussed in detail.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the research content, methodology, and presentation of your paper. Regrettably, after careful consideration, we’ve decided not to accept this submission. The specific reasons for rejection are as follows:

Deficiencies in research design and implementation: During the sample selection process, the sample size was too small, and there was no detailed description of the sample selection criteria. This severely undermines the representativeness and generalizability of the research findings. Moreover, the experimental period was too short, making it impossible to fully observe the long - term effects of educational robotics and game - based interventions on overcoming dyscalculia.

Lack of research value and innovation: There has been extensive research on educational robotics and gamified learning in the field of special education, particularly in the intervention of dyscalculia. Your paper bears a striking resemblance to these studies in terms of research ideas, intervention methods, and evaluation indicators. It fails to propose new theoretical frameworks, intervention models, or groundbreaking research results, contributing little to the incremental knowledge in this field.

Problems with paper writing and expression: There are significant flaws in the chapter structure and argumentation logic of the paper. There is a lack of effective transitions and connections between various parts. For example, when presenting research results, the data are merely listed. No in - depth analysis and discussion are carried out, and it’s not clear how the research results support the research hypotheses or what guiding significance these results have for the practice of educational robotics and game - based interventions in overcoming dyscalculia. In addition, some statements in the paper are ambiguous, and there are grammatical errors, affecting the readability and professionalism of the paper.

Although this submission was unsuccessful, we still encourage you to make comprehensive revisions and improvements to your paper in light of the above issues. We suggest expanding the sample size, optimizing the research design, deeply exploring the innovation of the research, and paying attention to the logical structure and language expression during the paper - writing process.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

none

Author Response

I conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the research content, methodology, and presentation of your paper. Regrettably, after careful consideration, we’ve decided not to accept this submission. The specific reasons for rejection are as follows:

Deficiencies in research design and implementation: During the sample selection process, the sample size was too small, and there was no detailed description of the sample selection criteria. This severely undermines the representativeness and generalizability of the research findings. Moreover, the experimental period was too short, making it impossible to fully observe the long - term effects of educational robotics and game - based interventions on overcoming dyscalculia.

Lack of research value and innovation: There has been extensive research on educational robotics and gamified learning in the field of special education, particularly in the intervention of dyscalculia. Your paper bears a striking resemblance to these studies in terms of research ideas, intervention methods, and evaluation indicators. It fails to propose new theoretical frameworks, intervention models, or groundbreaking research results, contributing little to the incremental knowledge in this field.

Problems with paper writing and expression: There are significant flaws in the chapter structure and argumentation logic of the paper. There is a lack of effective transitions and connections between various parts. For example, when presenting research results, the data are merely listed. No in - depth analysis and discussion are carried out, and it’s not clear how the research results support the research hypotheses or what guiding significance these results have for the practice of educational robotics and game - based interventions in overcoming dyscalculia. In addition, some statements in the paper are ambiguous, and there are grammatical errors, affecting the readability and professionalism of the paper.

Although this submission was unsuccessful, we still encourage you to make comprehensive revisions and improvements to your paper in light of the above issues. We suggest expanding the sample size, optimizing the research design, deeply exploring the innovation of the research, and paying attention to the logical structure and language expression during the paper - writing process.

 

We have revised the Discussion section and the changes include:

• Improved transitions between findings and interpretations.
• Explicit connection of results to hypotheses and implications.
• Clarified structure with better logical flow.
• A note confirming the addition of visuals and summary tables in the Results section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This revision is a significant improvement over the original draft, but still requires some more work.

Adding a diagram was a good idea to help illustrate the process, but please make it a "normal" 2D flowchart instead of this 3D effect. Adding a third dimension to a figure makes sense if it adds meaningful information, here it's confusing and makes it more difficult to read.

Section 2.6 is a valuable addition (now readers can know what was done in class better), however, it needs refinement. The descriptions of the arithmetic tasks could use some additional detail, one idea could be to use one (or both) of the new figures depicting the robots, explaining what the path drawn for it would represent. Additionally, for sentences like "This method proved particularly effective for students with learning difficulties, including those with autism and specific learning disorders (SLD), as it transformed abstract content into concrete, visual experiences." That is a claim that either needs a citation, or if it's talking about the present work, should be moved to the results or discussion and backed up with data.

"Preliminary analyses indicated that students with certified SLDs and SEN benefitted from the structured and multisensory nature of robotics-based instruction, although some required more scaffolding in early sessions." is similarly in need of citation and/or data.

"The robot moves using sensors." doesn't need to be specified, the other added description is a much better explanation of how students interact with the robots. It has been made clear how students give instruction to the robots in the class.

The changes to the Introduction and Methods sections are otherwise good, it makes it much more clear what was done in this work.

The Results section is more explained, but many of the previous limitations have remained. Figures 4 and 5 (I can refer to them by name now, which is an improvement) still have issues, the overlapping text in Figure 4 and incorrect Y-axis (and plot type) in Figure 5 need to be fixed. Sections 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 would still benefit from being explained better, right now they are simply a statistic listed. The tables with Question and Response columns remain unlabeled and unexplained, and they should not be broken up like that unless there will be a page break in the middle (and that should be avoided).

A correlation is calculated "between math anxiety and motivation", which both seem to be measured by the survey. It should explain what parts of it measure which or clarify if they are separate measurements. If it is a subset of the questions, is this taken into account when calculating results for "motivation" elsewhere?

The Limitations section definitely improves this work, especially by including some of the insights from interviews. While more information about the interviews could be interesting, it isn't a priority.

However, while it is good that it now specifies how many students, and in which classes, had dyscalculia, I am still not convinced that this result demonstrates very much to support significant claims specific to this condition. "Preliminary analyses" not specific to dyscalculia are mentioned, but not described, and these could make all the difference. This is only a pilot study, so obviously a deep exploration of this condition is intended as future work, but the promise of it should be established as a reason to motivate the future work in that direction. The Conclusion correctly does not make many claims that aren't supported by the work in general.

Author Response

This revision is a significant improvement over the original draft, but still requires some more work.

• Adding a diagram was a good idea to help illustrate the process, but please make it a "normal" 2D flowchart instead of this 3D effect. Adding a third dimension to a figure makes sense if it adds meaningful information, here it's confusing and makes it more difficult to read.

We modified the 2D flowchart (All modifications have been highlighted in green for your convenience.)

• Section 2.6 is a valuable addition (now readers can know what was done in class better), however, it needs refinement. The descriptions of the arithmetic tasks could use some additional detail, one idea could be to use one (or both) of the new figures depicting the robots, explaining what the path drawn for it would represent. Additionally, for sentences like "This method proved particularly effective for students with learning difficulties, including those with autism and specific learning disorders (SLD), as it transformed abstract content into concrete, visual experiences." That is a claim that either needs a citation, or if it's talking about the present work, should be moved to the results or discussion and backed up with data.

Section 2.6 is modified. Effectiveness of this method for students with learning difficulties is discussed later in Section 5.

- "Preliminary analyses indicated that students with certified SLDs and SEN benefitted from the structured and multisensory nature of robotics-based instruction, although some required more scaffolding in early sessions." is similarly in need of citation and/or data.

We added the citation n. 21

- "The robot moves using sensors." doesn't need to be specified, the other added description is a much better explanation of how students interact with the robots. It has been made clear how students give instruction to the robots in the class.

We delated “the robot moves using sensors”

• The changes to the Introduction and Methods sections are otherwise good, it makes it much more clear what was done in this work.

 

• The Results section is more explained, but many of the previous limitations have remained. Figures 4 and 5 (I can refer to them by name now, which is an improvement) still have issues, the overlapping text in Figure 4 and incorrect Y-axis (and plot type) in Figure 5 need to be fixed. Sections 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 would still benefit from being explained better, right now they are simply a statistic listed. The tables with Question and Response columns remain unlabeled and unexplained, and they should not be broken up like that unless there will be a page break in the middle (and that should be avoided).

 

We have modified the figure 5. The titles for the tables have been revised for clarity and consistency. Each table now clearly describes the respective data and matches the content of the figures.

 

• A correlation is calculated "between math anxiety and motivation", which both seem to be measured by the survey. It should explain what parts of it measure which or clarify if they are separate measurements. If it is a subset of the questions, is this taken into account when calculating results for "motivation" elsewhere?

 

We modified the section 2.5. We clarified that the 2 anxiety-related items were excluded from the overall motivation score when calculating the mean motivation results reported elsewhere in the manuscript. Therefore, the motivation mean values and the anxiety correlation analysis are methodologically separated and non-overlapping

- The Limitations section definitely improves this work, especially by including some of the insights from interviews. While more information about the interviews could be interesting, it isn't a priority.

 

• However, while it is good that it now specifies how many students, and in which classes, had dyscalculia, I am still not convinced that this result demonstrates very much to support significant claims specific to this condition. "Preliminary analyses" not specific to dyscalculia are mentioned, but not described, and these could make all the difference. This is only a pilot study, so obviously a deep exploration of this condition is intended as future work, but the promise of it should be established as a reason to motivate the future work in that direction. The Conclusion correctly does not make many claims that aren't supported by the work in general.

 

We revised the "Discussion" and "Conclusion" sections to emphasize that the current findings are preliminary in nature, and that future research will explicitly focus on stratified analyses comparing students with and without dyscalculia.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors This research direction is valuable, and the application of robotics in education holds social significance, such as in promoting educational equity and intervening in special groups. Experiments show that robotics education has positive effects, providing a foundation for further research. However, the paper has the following issues:

 

1. Chaotic chapter structure: The introduction, methodology, results, and discussion are disjointed, lacking logical coherence and smooth transitions between sections.
2. Inadequate result analysis: The analysis of results does not closely address the research questions, failing to establish a clear connection between findings and the core objectives of the study.
3. Weak causal linkage: Data presentation and conclusion derivation lack causal reasoning. The paper merely describes phenomena without explaining the underlying mechanisms or theoretical basis for the observed results.

 

At present, the writing quality of the paper does not meet the standards for publication in academic journals. Comments on the Quality of English Language

none

Author Response

This research direction is valuable, and the application of robotics in education holds social significance, such as in promoting educational equity and intervening in special groups. Experiments show that robotics education has positive effects, providing a foundation for further research. However, the paper has the following issues:

 

1. Chaotic chapter structure: The introduction, methodology, results, and discussion are disjointed, lacking logical coherence and smooth transitions between sections.
2. Inadequate result analysis: The analysis of results does not closely address the research questions, failing to establish a clear connection between findings and the core objectives of the study.
3. Weak causal linkage: Data presentation and conclusion derivation lack causal reasoning. The paper merely describes phenomena without explaining the underlying mechanisms or theoretical basis for the observed results.

At present, the writing quality of the paper does not meet the standards for publication in academic journals.

 

 

Thank you for your constructive feedback. All modifications have been highlighted in turquoise for your convenience. We have addressed the points raised as follows:

Chaotic chapter structure: We revised the manuscript for smoother transitions between sections, ensuring a more coherent flow and a clearer narrative.

Inadequate result analysis: We enhanced the analysis by directly linking the results to the research questions, providing a more robust interpretation.

Weak causal linkage: We strengthened the causal reasoning by incorporating relevant theoretical frameworks, including Self-Determination Theory, and explained the mechanisms behind the observed outcomes.

We believe these revisions address your concerns and enhance the overall quality of the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, most of the concerns have been addressed.

However, Figure 5 still needs to be recreated. It now has some boxes drawn over it, and it simply needs to be recreated. The modifications have only made it more confusing.

While I still feel the dyscalculia context is stressed too much for the presented sample, as it wasn't possible to find anything significant regarding it, with the limited sample size, I will leave that decision up to the editors.

Author Response

However, Figure 5 still needs to be recreated. It now has some boxes drawn over it, and it simply needs to be recreated. The modifications have only made it more confusing.

1) We have revised Figure 5 as requested, and we hope that the updated version is now clearer and more appropriate.

 

While I still feel the dyscalculia context is stressed too much for the presented sample, as it wasn't possible to find anything significant regarding it, with the limited sample size, I will leave that decision up to the editors.

2) We have added in green colour a specific section in the "Limitations and implications for future research" section to address the second comment regarding the generalizability of the findings and the need to expand the sample in future research. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx