Educational Robot - ABii
User Experience Researcher | Mixed Method Research
About the Project
Though there is growing evidence of the potential of physically present educational robots in improving engagement and learning outcomes with young children, there is limited understanding of how those effects may play out in a real school environment over an extended period of time.
In this study, we used a commercially available robotic learning system ABii from Van Robotics in the kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms in an urban elementary school on the east coast of the United states to bridge this gap.
Background and Role
As a User Experience Researcher, my role was to conduct field studies, including:
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Interviews
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Direct observations
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Note-taking
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Interacting with teachers
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Data analysis
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Data visualization
Outcome
During a summer professional development event in 2022, I presented a demo robot lesson to teachers at a public elementary school (PreK-2nd) located on the east coast of the United States. The school has a predominantly African American/Black student population (95%), with over 85% of students eligible for free or reduced-fee lunch due to low-income families. Two teachers from the school, one from first grade and the other from kindergarten, volunteered to participate in the study, which received approval from both the Institutional Research Board at my university and the public school district.
352
Sessions
822
Lessons
25
Students
8
Unique Themes
Challenges
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Maintaining attention span for 15-20 minutes long learning sessions
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Prioritizing research findings and converting them into meaningful recommendations.
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Combating technical issues.
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During direct observation, children would become talkative and get distracted while talking to the researchers.
Research Gaps
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Limited understanding of how engagement and learning may play out in a real school environment over an extended period of time.
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Robots are expensive.
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Limitations to the languages available.
Impact
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Incorporating students from special education classes.
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Improved user experience based on qualitative data observed and provided by the users.
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It helps teachers understand which students need more attention in specific lessons.
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Increased requests from schools and teachers to incorporate robot learning in their classrooms.
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Published a paper at the Human-Robot Interaction Conference.
