Original title: Robotics as Therapy: A Conceptual Framework for Student Well-Being Through Experiential STEM Learning
Prapti Doshi, Ananta Ganjoo · September 2026
Intense school pressure and a focus on test scores harm student mental health and kill curiosity, especially in developing nations like India. To solve this, researchers designed the Robotics as Therapy framework. This new learning model uses educational robotics as a therapeutic tool to fight burnout and performance anxiety in science and math education. It works by moving students into low-stakes, hands-on workshops where they become active creators rather than passive test-takers. The paper shows that building and fixing robots provides a safe space to fail. Fixing mistakes builds mental resilience, hands-on tasks help students regulate their physical and emotional stress, and the activities adapt to neurodivergent learners. This approach blends emotional health with technical training to prepare students for the future workforce.
Imagine a cooking class where your every mistake is graded and announced. You would stop experimenting and only cook the safest dishes. Here, the classroom is replaced with a no-grades kitchen where you can learn from burnt edges. In this paper, the stressful classroom is the competitive education system, and the robotics workshop is that forgiving kitchen.
In countries like India, where academic pressure often harms student mental health, this framework suggests that building robots in a low-stakes environment can reduce burnout and anxiety. It reimagines STEM education as a space for emotional growth, not just test scores. The goal is to prepare students for both technical skills and the emotional demands of future work.
The abstract doesn't say what the limitations are. It presents a conceptual framework and theoretical synthesis without experimental results, so empirical validation is not provided.
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Robotics as Therapy: A Conceptual Framework for Student Well-Being Through Experiential STEM Learning — Prapti Doshi, Ananta Ganjoo — EdArXiv — doi:10.35542/osf.io/evs7y_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.