Maintaining the child-robot relationship after a significant break, such as a holiday, is an important step for developing sustainable social robots for education. We ran a four-session user study (n = 113 children) that included a nine-month break between the third and fourth session. During the study, …

Let's Get Personal - Social Personalization for Sustainable Long-Term Educational Robots

Given the hospitality industry's quick rebound and volume growth in most OECD nations following the Great Recession, the hotel sector in the Netherlands is currently experiencing a severe labour shortage that predates the Covid-19 epidemic (Joppe, 2012). Staff shortages and cost-cutting measures in the …

The challenges facing primary education are significant: a growing teacher shortage, relatively high administrative burdens that contribute to work-related stress and an increasing diversity of children in the classroom. A promising new technology that can help teachers and children meet these challenges …

Supporting children's language development through social robots (discussant)

In deze presentatie geef ik een kort overzicht van het onderzoek dat binnen het lectoraat User-Centered Design (onderdeel van het lectoraat Digitale Transformatie) aan de Hanzehogeschool Groningen wordt gedaan. Daarbij zal ik twee onderzoeksprojecten nader toelichten waarin we kijken naar hoe nieuwetechnologieën …

BACKGROUND: Rapid technological development has been opening new possibilities for children with disabilities. In particular, robots can enable and create new opportunities in therapy, rehabilitation, education, or leisure. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to share experiences, challenges and learned …

In de afgelopen jaren hebben technologische ontwikkelingen de aard van dienstverlening ingrijpend veranderd (Huang & Rust, 2018). Technologie wordt steeds vaker ingezet om menselijke servicemedewerkers te vervangen of te ondersteunen (Larivière et al., 2017; Wirtz et al., 2018). Dit stelt dienstverleners …

Social robots are reported to hold great potential for education. However, both scholars and key stakeholders worry about children’s social-emotional development being compromised. In aiming to provide new insights into the impact that social robots can have on the social-emotional development of children, …

Social robots have been introduced in different fields such as retail, health care and education. Primary education in the Netherlands (and elsewhere) recently faced new challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines including students falling behind and teachers burdened with …