PRE2018 4 Group4
| Student | Student Number |
| Anne Aarts | 1026630 |
| Rick van Beek | 1243355 |
| Bjarne Kraak | 1262580 |
| Paul van Dijk | 1278347 |
| Pelle Schram | 1252089 |
Abstract
With the increasing diversity in modern society and the constantly increasing expectations of work, the amount of burnouts among educators has been higher than expected. Teachers suffer from emotional exhaustion with the increasing workload, which is a cause and consequence for the demand of more teachers in every level of schooling. In the Netherlands, one out of five teachers experiences symptoms of burnout (CBS, 2015). Also, a report of the NFER shows that in England job-related stress is higher among teachers than other professionals (NFER, 2019). Not only does this affect the teachers themselves: students are also negatively influenced by the presence of a burned-out teacher (Herman; Hickmon-Rosa; Reinke, 2017). A solution is yet to be found; several options are being research and considered. One of those options could be an implementation of robot technology.
Research questions
At first, it was tried to find an answer to the next research question:
- Q1. In which way, robots can assist nursery teachers so that the workload of teachers is decreased and the level of education is kept the same or increased?
However, in the first part of the study, multiple scenarios of the use of robots in the nursery classroom were created based on the explorative literature study in appendix A and elaborated on. While performing some research in nursery classrooms, it however became apparent that the suggested solutions did not solve this particular problem but could be useful for improving the level of education. The research questions answered in this paper was thus changed to the following one:
- Q2. In which way robots can assist nursery teachers so that the level of education is increased?
Target audience: kindergarten (4-6 years). Children are in one of their primary development stages, robots can have a major influence on them.
Stress
The definition of teacher stress is most frequently quoted as the experience by teachers of negative or unpleasant emotions resuling from aspects of their work (Kyriacou, 1987).
Several factors include:
- Time pressures: Numerous demands on their time and the interruptions to their planned time.
- Children's needs: Trying to maintain a child-responsive curriculum and dealing with other competing demands on the teachers' time.
- Non-teaching tasks: Nature of preschool environment is rather informal when compared to a larger school system and there are fewer gatekeepers to protect the teacher from unnecessary interruptions. There is no one to sort out paper work or to answer phones.
- Maintaining early childhood philosophy and practice: Conflict between expectations about quality in an early childhood program and maintaining that quality in practice.
- Personal needs: In order to accomplish all the tasks associated with the role of teacher, many of these teachers sacrifice personal needs.
- Issues with the parents of the children: Changes in family structures make it difficult for parents to participate in their children's schooling.
- Interpersonal relationships: The nature of preschool is interactive, informal and people-oriented.
- Attitudes and perceptions about early childhood programs:
Burnout is the accumulation of responses to extended stressors caused by one’s job. The high amount of burnout cases among teachers is caused by several factors:
- Teacher turnover, The rate at which personnel whose primary function is classroom teaching leave or separate from the district, or change from their classroom teaching to another position from one school year to another" (Colorado Department of Education), which has not increased in spite of the growing demand for teachers.
- Emotional exhaustion due to the high degree of emotional involvement of the job.
- High workload
- Teacher self-efficacy (individual's belief in their innate ability to achieve goals).
Users
We identified the next user groups:
- Children: Children want to be entertained.
- Teachers: Teachers would like to see their stress relieved.
- Parents: In order to accept robots, parents would expect at least the same quality of education from robots as from teachers.
- Government: The government would like to have a better quality of education, without increasing the money spent on education.
- Enterprises: Enterprises would like to see new and profitable opportunities.
Planning
Devision of work
The research is performed in a total of eight weeks. Those eight weeks are divided in two parts:
- 1. a broad and explorative literature and practical study which we conclude with formulating a specific hypothesis, and
- 2. a test where it's tried to find out whether the hypothesis formulated is true or false.
| Week | Datum start | To Do & Milestones | Responsible team members |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 29 April | Part 1:Generate mutual understanding of the subject
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1. Everyone; |
| 2 | 6 May | Part 1: Discuss task for the robot
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1. Everyone; |
| 3 | 13 May | Part 1:Prepare interview
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1. Paul & Bjarne; |
| 4 | 20 May | Part 1->2Chose specific scenario based on school visits'
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1.Paul, Rick & Pelle; |
| 5 | 27 May | Part 2: Prepare for test & become familair with programming Nao robot
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1. Everyone; |
| 6 | 3 June | Part 2:Program thought out test
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1. Pelle & Anne; |
| 7 | 10 June | Part 2: Perform test at nursery school
Milestones: |
Responsible members:
1, 2, 3 &4. Everyone, at least three; |
| 8 | 17 June | Part 2: Evaluate test and look forward
Milestones: |
Responsible team members:
1&2. Bjarne; |
Part 1: Hypothesis to Q1 and Q2
Based on existing literature, five hypothesis where formulated and elaborated on, as an possible answer to Q1. When it became apparent that neither of those five hypothesis where likely to be true, Q2 was formulated. All scenarios are also hypothesis to Q2.
Emotion recognition
H1: A robot which tries to learn toddlers more about emotions has the potential of increasing the level of education at a nursery school.
Recognition of emotions is fundamental to healthy social relationships in life. From birth on people get in an constantly changing environment of emotional input from other humans, a process of recognition which is learned in the early stages of life. When children get into school, they get into contact with other children on an almost daily basis. They develop awareness of their own feelings and of emotion-eliciting events. When robots are introduced into early stages of school, they can have a major effect on the emotional development of children. With robots not (yet) being conscious or able to develop social contact in the way humans do, there could be a clash which introduces one of the most used arguments against robot deployment in schools. However, robots can be used to teach certain emotions, for example showing different facial expressions on a screen and let the children guess the emotion the robot is trying to imitate. The implementation of these robots has been researched and proved helpful with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (Leo et al., 2016).
Emotion recognition could be done with the robot NAO. The NAO robot does not have facial expressions because its face is plain with moderate likeness to a real person. However, the emotions can still be portrayed using the combination of body language, sounds and colors from its LEDs on the eyes. Simple emotions as angry, happy and sad can be created. Still, there are limitations to the movement due to the degrees of freedom (Miskam et al., 2014).
Physical
H2: A robot which encourages toddlers to perform physical exercise has the potential of increasing the level of education at a nursery school.
To stay healthy, it is important to be active and move enough during the day. Unfortunately overweight is becoming more prevalent, also among preschoolers. In the Netherlands in 2009, 8-18% of children aged 2-5 years old was overweight or obese (Sijtsma, 2013). Overweight in early childhood also affects the likelihood of obesity in later childhood and adulthood (Cardon, De Craemer, De Bourdeaudhuij & Verloigne, 2014). Therefore, stimulating physical activity in preschoolers would be a good use of the robot.
This could be done by using a humanoid robot (like NAO) whose movements children can imitate. Besides helping the preschoolers stay healthy, physical exercises can also help their development. The robot could for example play an educational, physical game, like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes or engage the children with dance. The latter has been done before with 5-year-olds with positive results. The children were eager to dance and imitate the robot, which contributes to their motor skills like balance (Crompton, Gregory, Burke, 2018).
Below are requirements and preferences for a robot that engages young children in physical exercise. The robot should be imitable and able to communicate with the children. It should keep the childrens’ attention. It would be good if the robot can monitor what the children are doing. It is very hard for robots to interpret visuals though, and the robot can also do without, so this is a preference rather than a requirement.
Requirements:
- The robot can give voice commands.
- The robot looks humanoid.
- The robot has movable legs and arms.
- The robot can keep children occupied with physical exercise for 15 minutes.
- The robot has at least three different exercise programs.
- The robot has a battery life of at least 30 minutes.
- The robot should not break easily.
Preferences:
- The robot can see whether the children are correctly executing the exercise.
- The robot can understand basic commands.
An example of a physical exercise is as follows:
Teacher to robot: “Start body parts exercise”
Robot: “Hello! I am [name]. Do you want to play a game?”
Children: “Yes!”
Robot: “We are going to learn about the body and the face. Can everyone touch their head?”
>Robot brings both hands to its head
>Children imitate this
Robot: “Good job! Now touch your knees.”
>Robot brings hands to knees, children imitate this
[etc.]
The robot can teach the children the names of body parts and then play Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes with them.
Learning by Quizgame
H3: A robot which encourages toddlers to attend to a quizgame exercise has the potential of increasing the level of education at a nursery school.
Scenario: The teacher of a kindergarten class sees that one of her pupils has some troubles, maybe the student does not fit in the group, has trouble sharing or something else. The teacher decides to help the child and wants to speak to her in private, but the teacher knows that her other students need to be kept busy while she does that. So she sets up the robot to play a quiz game with the remaining children. This way the teacher can help solve the problem to the best extent while the other children are not affected.
The robot starts talking to the kids and begins with a little story that he lost some of his favorite objects and that he needs the students help with finding them. First he asks the children to find his blue ball next comes the red cube and after this comes the orange triangle. The children have to bring the objects to the robot and the robot scans if it’s the correct item. If it is the correct item the kid is thanked for his good job, but if it is the wrong item the robot still thanks the kid for his effort and explains why this is not the right object. After this the robot thanks the children and tells them he also lost his utensils and asks them if the kids can help him again.
Meanwhile the teacher is solving the problem of his student. Thanks to the robot he can focus on this uninterrupted and find a solution quickly. After 5-10 minutes the teacher has resolved the issue and lets the student join his peers. He lets the little game finish and continues his class.
Requirements: - Needs to be able to hold the children’s attention. - The robot must have an educating effect on the children. - Must have sensors to sense the objects brought to it. - Should work from 9 in the morning until 12:30 without charging, charging should be done in one hour. - The robot must be accepted by majority of the parents. - The robot should resemble a human.
Background: At a young age children learn by playing and mimicking (Comer R., Gould E., Furnham A. 2013.), because of this a quiz where the children have to locate and bring an object which name is given is a good idea. For example the question “Can you bring me the red block?” is given. To reduce the stress and workload of the kindergarten teacher an anthropomorphized robot is the best option. (Han J. 2010)
Storytelling
H4: A robot which encourages toddlers to actively listen to a story has the potential of increasing the level of education at a nursery school.
Entertainment:
The study shows that entertainment, sense-making and knowledge are closely related in storytelling activities for young children. Importantly, for the young listeners storytelling is closely linked to entertainment, enchantment and fun. The young children, including toddlers, attended to the teachers’ story performance by engaging in attentive listening, volunteering embodied affective stances, verbal repetitions, and pre-emptive moves (Cekaite, 2018). The NAO robot could be used to perform the storytelling and to entertain the toddlers (Fridin, 2014).
Performance:
Nao as an embodied interactive storyteller, can assist the kindergarten educational staff by telling the children prerecorded stories. Nao told the prerecorded story, while expressing appropriate emotions both bodily and vocally. While telling the story, it taught the children new concepts. First it asked the children if they knew some of the terms related to the story. Nao gave positive feedback for any answer volunteered by the children, and then explained what the terms mean. It then asked the children what sounds are made by the animals in the story, and produced the animal sounds for them to hear. Furthermore images were shown on a screen to make the story more obvious. It also incorporated singing during the procedure and introduced motor games (such as imitating the robot’s movements like animals in the stories). During the procedure Nao constantly moved in front of the children, turned its head, and changed the color of the light in its eyes, simulating a human-like shift of attention to different children (Fridin, 2014).
Learning:
Storytelling is essential for children’s development of language expression, logical thinking, imagination, and creativity (Wright,1995). It can be used to engage preschool children in constructive learning. Storytelling by a robot as described in the paper 'Storytelling by a kindergarten social assistive robot: A tool for constructive learning in preschool education' is called constructive learning (Fridin, 2014). It encourages learners to experience the content in different ways, using different senses. The robot is suitably programmed to provide this multisensory learning experience: it displays images on a screen, tells a story and discusses it with the children, and incorporates singing and motor activities in the process. An interactive robot served as a teacher assistant by telling prerecorded stories to small groups of children while incorporating song and motor activities in the process. The results show that the children enjoyed interacting with the robot and accepted its authority (Fridin, 2014).
Requirements:
- Keep the toddlers busy with the robot for 15-20 minutes.
- The toddlers should love to play or communicate with the robot.
- The robot should be meaningful for the toddlers, for example improving skills of creativity/ vocabulary/ drawing/ sound expressions and holding attention.
- The robot should work for at least 8 hours without charging.
- The robot should be accepted by 75-80% of the toddlers parents.
Touch
H5: A robot which encourages toddlers to touch the robot has the potential of increasing the level of education at a nursery school.
It has been proven that touch can be very important for the development of children. For example, more touch contributed to a faster growth of newborns (Rausch, 1981). Therefore, touching robots can also be beneficial for toddlers. A study suggested that touching and viewing the robots was just as effective in improving the relationship towards the robot (Vickers, Ohlsson, Lacy & Horsley, 2004). In the same paper, a test or game was made using the NAO robot. This game could be further elaborated on and used for toddlers as well. In this way, touch could be used to get the attention of toddlers.
Part 1: Interviewing nursery school teachers, checking Hypothesis H1-H5
After developing five scenarios which would possibly be able the lower the workload of nursery teachers while keeping the level of education at the same level or even increasing it, a specific one had to be chosen. This scenario would be worked out. To choose a specific scenario out of the options, we asked a expert with a lot of practical experience - nursery school teacher Tieneke ... about her findings on the topic. When making the questions we made sure that the questions were not biased and wouldn’t give biased results. For this we used the book “Principles and Methods of Social Research” and Multiple psychology textbooks. We figured out that we should not ask leading questions and how to best formulate a question. The questions asked and answers given are elaborated on below.
Purpose: Find out which use of robot technology (Physical, Learning by quiz game, storytelling) is most useful for lowering the workload according to a nursery teacher and which requirements the technology has to match to make sure it's succesful.
Questions
- What are the main tasks of a nursery teacher in a Montessori school?
During class time, the nursery teacher helps the children with their activities and the exercises they do. The teacher is responsible for the kids and they should therefore be closely monitored. Furthermore the kids should be raised and etiquettes need to be learned. Toddlers need lot of help and attention which is an important task of a nursery teacher. During class, materials and devices could break, small problems could occur, children could fall etcetera. These little pursuits are really time consuming. After class time, the teacher is busy with administrative task as the progress of the individual toddlers needs to be documented. In addition, teachers are often loaded with meetings within the school, but also with external people. The progress of the children should be discussed with the parents of the child and if necessary an expert could also be involved. At the end of the day it is the task of the nursey teacher to clean the room and prepare it for the next day.
- Which tasks of a nursery teacher in a Montessori school could cause - in your opinion - a possible high workload? Many teachers experience stress from a high workload. Do you do to0?
The high workload / stress is caused by the after school tasks which need to be performed. Due to spending cuts in the education, more and more task are transferred to the nursery teacher, which causes a higher workload, for example the teacher should now clean their own classroom. Due to the many tasks that must be executed, time has become scarce. The administrative tasks (paperwork) are the main cause of the high workload / stress.
- Do you use some computer or robot technologies? If yes, which and on which basis?
Computer technology is definitely be used. There are several IPads available in the classroom with different educative apps installed. Furthermore there is a Digiboard and a computer. They also use a sort of robot technology, called a ‘bee bot’, this robot learns the toddler the first ‘programming’ steps.
- We developed three scenarios for using robot technologies in a nursery classroom to occupy children and thus lower the workload:
1. Physical exercise
2. Learning by quiz game
3. Storytelling
- Which scenario, if any, would - in your opinion - decrease the workload the most/least and why?
None of the three scenario’s would be efficient for decreasing the workload for the nursery teacher, because the high workload is caused by tasks after school time.
- Which scenario, if any, would - in your opinion - occupy the children the best/worst and why?
None of the three scenario’s would be needed for occupying the toddlers, because in a Montessori school the children mostly work on their own chosen activities and therefore don’t need to be occupied by robot technology. The robot technology could on the other hand be useful for improving the education level.
- Can you think of another scenario using robot technologies which would - in your opinion - be more successful in lowering the workload and occupying the children then the previous scenarios?
Since the high workload/stress is caused by the administrative work after school time, the robot technology should not be used for lowering the workload and since it is a Montessori school, the toddlers work own their own individually, so don’t need to be occupied. On the other hand, the robot technology could be used for improving the educational level in a nursery school. For example, The robot could learn the toddlers: - how to fold paper - consecutive instructions (opeenvolgende instructies) - spatial awareness (ruimtelijk inzicht) - listening comprehension (begrijpend luisteren) - focused drawing (gericht tekenen)
- What would - in your opinion - be the criteria for success for robot technology in a nursery classroom?
The most important aspects of criteria is that the robot technology should be educational and interesting. It should lift the education to a higher level.
- Is the following criterion an important aspect for success?
'Keeping the children occupied for at least 10 minutes straight'.
As the nursery school is a Montessori school, the toddlers are busy with their own chosen activities and work most of their time independently, which means that it is not needed to keep the children occupied for a specific time by using a robot technology.
- Can we test this in practice in a few weeks? If so, when would this be possible (in the week of 10-14 June)?
It is definitely possible to test our robot technology solution in practice! We should make an appointment with Tieneke when to test it in practice.
Part 2: Final Hypothesis (H6)
In addition to changing Q1 to Q2, another hypothesis was formulated, in addition to H1-H5. Q2: Q2. In which way robots can assist nursery teachers so that the level of education is increased?
H6: A robot which encourages toddlers to perform comprehensive listening by a drawing exercise to increase the level of education at a nursery school.
Literature study
Hypothesis 6 rests on two assumptions: that practicing comprehensive listening skills will improve education and that a robot providing drawing instructions can fulfill this.
Comprehensive listening skills
The interviewed kindergarten teacher posited that listening skills of children are in decline. This is corroborated by, for instance, teachers Spooner & Woodcock (2010). They are "seeing increasing numbers of children who find it challenging to keep listening, stay focused on a task and follow even simple instructions in the classroom". They also cite multiple surveys proving concern for young children's listening skills. Laura Janusik, professor of communication, found that we spent 45% of our time listening in 1930 and only 24% in 2007.
Experiment
The experiment will be conducted in three parts:
- First part: Start with a test on their current level of comprehensive listening with a criteria test. Start tests with NAO to practice the comprehensive learning.
- Second part: Test more with NAO and comprehensive learning.
- Third part: Final practice test with NAO and comprehensive learning. Conduct the same criteria test to compare results.
The tests still have to be worked out.
Part 2: Nao Robot
NAO is made up of a unique combination of hardware and software, NAO consists of sensors, motors, and software driven by NAOqi, a dedicated operating system. This combination of technologies gives NAO the ability to detect its surroundings. Using the embedded software, NAO is then able to interpret what it has detected and activated programmed responses. Creating elaborate behaviors, accessing the data that is captured by the sensors, and controlling the robot are made possible by the movement libraries, available through graphics tools such as the Choregraphe programming software.
The NAO robot has several actuators which in combination create 25 degrees of freedom for movement. These are included in the following parts:
- Head
- Right/left arm:
- Shoulder
- Elbow
- Hand
- Right/left leg:
- Hip
- Knee
- Ankle
Furthermore, the available sensors are:
- Two HD Cameras
- Four Microphones
- 10 tactile sensors
- Sonar rangefinders
Part 2: Standard test for comprehensive listening
CITO provides multiple tests for comprehensive listening for the primary and secondary school.
For group 3, children of about a bit more then six years old, twelve exercises for comprehensive listening are provided regarding different topics (Berkel, van et al., 2013, p.50-55).
By splitting the children in two groups, one test group and one control group, the influence of our drawing test on comprehensive listening can be examined. Both groups will have to fill in 6 out of 12 provided questions in advance, and the other 6 afterwards.
Part 2: Drawing exercise
Literature
According to Claire E. Cameron in the early stages of childhood motor skills are related with learning. Gross motor skills are a critical part of children’s developing social competencies and physical well being. In contrast, fine motor skills are associated more robustly with academic achievement.
Because of this drawing is a good way for a child to spend some time. This way the child develops his/her fine motor skills while having fun. Drawing has other benefits as well since it is a complex system. The drawing system uses motor output, imagery, memory, meaning, perception and verbal abilities (A Toomela 2002). Toomela’s tests show that these components of the drawing system independently affect drawing development and that different components are crucial for the development in different phases of development.
When we combine the conclusions of these studies with what the kindergarten teacher told us about the decline of listening skills of children. We wanted to set up an exercise for the children where the robot tells them what to draw. This way they develop their listening skills while also developing their fine motor skills. With this we hope to reduce the problem of comprehensive listening skills in young children.
Creation of game
Introduction 1
Hoi kinderen, mijn naam is NAO en ik heb begrepen dat jullie leuke kinderen zijn. Kunnen jullie dit laten horen? – 3 seconde stil. Hebben jullie zin om samen met mij een liedje te zingen? - 3 seconde stil. Mooi, dan gaan we dat doen! Kennen jullie het liedje de wielen van de bus? - 3 seconde wachten. (de wielen van de bus afspelen voor 20 seconde). Vonden jullie het leuk? - 3 seconde wachten. Wie heeft er zin om te tekenen met mij? - 3 seconde wachten. Super! Jullie zijn echt leuke kinderen!
We gaan zo een tekening maken en ik zeg wat jullie moeten tekenen. Goed luisteren dus! Hebben jullie hier zin in? – 3 seconde stil. Dat kan harder! – 3 seconde stil. Pakken jullie een blaadje en een potlood?
Drawing exercise 1
Dan gaan we beginnen!
Teken aan de linker kant van het blaadje een huisje met twee ramen. - 20 seconde wachten. Er is alleen geen deur, dus kom je het huis niet binnen. Als jullie goed geluisterd hebben weten jullie wat er mist. Wat mist er? – 5 seconde wachten. Heel goed, een deur. Teken de deur. Goedzo! Het is een mooie dag. Wat schijnt er bij een mooie dag? - 5 seconde wachten. Heel goed, de zon. Teken nu de zon rechts boven op het papier. Weten jullie hoe een boom eruit ziet? - 5 seconde wachten. Mooi zo, teken de boom aan de rechter kant van het papier, onder de zon. Super! Goed gedaan. Al laatste teken een wolk links van de zon en boven het huis. - 20 seconde wachten. Goed bezig kinderen!
We zijn klaar voor vandaag. Vonden jullie het leuk? -5 seconde wachten. Ik vond het ook leuk met jullie. Tot de volgende keer!
Introduction 2
Hey kinderen! Daar ben ik weer. Kennen jullie me nog? - 5 seconde wachten. Ik ken jullie ook nog! We gaan zo weer een leuke tekening maken. Doen jullie allemaal weer mee? - 5 seconde wachten. Pakken jullie papier en een potlood?
Drawing exercise 2
Dan gaan we beginnen!
Teken een boom in het midden van het papier. Goedzo. Als je naar de lucht kijkt, wat zie je dan allemaal? - 5 seconde wachten. Juist, wolken. Teken nu boven de boom een wolk. Goed bezig allemaal! Hoe heet die hele hete gele bol in de lucht? - 5 seconde wachten. Jaaa de zon. Teken nu een zon links van de wolk. - 30 seconde wachten. Teken nu een huisje met twee ramen en een deur rechts van de boom. Echt knap van jullie!
We zijn klaar voor vandaag. Vonden jullie het leuk? -5 seconde wachten. Ik vond het ook leuk met jullie. Tot de volgende keer!
Introduction 3
Hey kinderen! Daar ben ik weer. Kennen jullie me nog? - 5 seconde wachten. Ik ken jullie ook nog! We gaan zo weer een leuke tekening maken. Doen jullie allemaal weer mee? - 5 seconde wachten. Pakken jullie papier en een potlood?
Drawing exercise 3
Dan gaan we beginnen!
Teken nu een huisje met twee ramen en een deur in het midden van het papier. Goed bezig! Teken nu rechtsboven en linksboven een zon. Echt knap van jullie! Teken nu tussen de twee zonnen in een wolk. Knap hoor van jullie! Als laatste teken een boom onder de linker zon.
Closing
Ik hoop dat jullie het leuk vonden om met mij te tekenen en plezier te maken. Vonden jullie het ook leuk? - 5 seconde wachten. Mooizo! Helaas was dit de laatste keer dat ik bij jullie langs kom. Vinden jullie het ook jammer dat ik wegga? - 5 seconde wachten. Zullen we dan voor de laatste keer nog een liedje zingen? - 5 seconden wachten. Geweldig, dan gaan we de wielen van de bus zingen (de wielen van de bus afspelen voor 20 seconden).
Applaus voor jezelf. - 5 seconde wachten. Allemaal veel plezier en succes!
Conclusion
Discussion
Continuation
There are multiple options for improving this project. For example, by designing an app which communicates with the NAO robot, in order to be able to check the exercises the children perform. The app would have the same exercises as the ones that are performed on paper. The concept of the app would consist several exercises on comprehensive listening, in which the robot tells the exercises and the child has to perform the drawing.
As the robot cannot (yet) recognize drawn objects on paper, the app will have different moveable blocks on a set template, in which the child has to move these objects to the right positions according to the instructions from the robot. These block contain the objects described by the robot (i.e. house, tree), so the child only has to move the blocks to the right, told position. To include creativity in these exercises, an option could be to let the child draw the objects in the different blocks beforehand, in which each block has a description of what object has to be in it. This way, the robot can check the exercise without having to recognize the certain object by itself, as it is predefined by the given description. An example can be seen in the right figure. This is an example of an exercise, in which the robot speaks the sentence:
- "The tree is to the right of the house. To the left of the house stands a car, with a person on top of it."
The blocks can then be moved into the right pattern with help of several predefined placement blocks (grey boxes). The app will check the pattern, and will indicate whether the pattern is right or not. The robot will then continue to say that the child has it right or that he should try again. This figure resembles the general idea of what the app would contain with regard to exercises. In this example, the child is expected to draw the certain objects in the black boxes with according to the descriptions. This is where the creativity would come in. It can also be done with several general images of simple recognisable objects, however this would leave the idea of creativity.
Appendices
Appendix A. Orientational Literature Study
To earn some insights on the topic of robots in childcare, a broad literature study has been performed. The problem statement as formulated in the introduction is based on the literature found. A small summary of every article is provided. The scientific articles found are divided in the next topics for easy classification:
- Teachers and burnouts
- Roles
- Acceptance
- Ethics
- Technology
Teachers and burnouts
The next articles are classified under the topic 'Teachers and burnouts':
- Teacher Labour Market in England (Worth & Van den Brande, 2019)
Summary: A report of the NFER shows that job-related stress is higher among teachers than other professionals.
- CBS en TNO: Een op de zeven werknemers heeft burn-outklachten (CBS, 2015)
Summary: More than 14 percent of employees in the Netherlands has had a burnout in 2014 (1:7). Among education is the highest percentage of burnouts: one out of five has to deal with it.
- Comparative Study of Teachers in Regular Schools and Teachers in Specialized Schools in France, Working with Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder: Stress, Social Support, Coping Strategies and Burnout (Boujut, Dean, Grouselle & Cappe, 2016)
Summary: Study comparing teachers of regular schools and specialized schools with regard to, among others, stress and burnout. Specialized teachers are less emotionally exhausted, as they have adjustment due to their training, experience, and tailored classroom conditions.
- Social Support and Teacher Burnout (Sarros & Sarros, 1992)
Summary: The interest in teacher stress and burnout in Australia has been increasing steadily over the last five to ten years. In comparison to the ongoing stress research, the role of social support in helping educators cope with the stress of teaching has received methodical but limited attention. Although the research base on educator burnout and social support is expanding, there remains nonetheless the need for a more complete understanding of these phenomena.
- Empirically Derived Profiles of Teacher Stress, Burnout, Self-Efficacy, and Coping and Associated Student Outcomes (Herman, Hickmon-Rosa & Reinke, 2018).
Summary: Understanding how teacher stress, burnout, coping, and self-efficacy are interrelated can inform preventive and intervention efforts to support teachers. This study researched this in relation to student outcomes, including disruptive behaviors and academic achievement. Teachers in the high stress, high burnout, and low coping class were associated with the poorest student outcomes. Implications for supporting teachers to maximize student outcomes are discussed.
- Lessons from teachers on performing HRI studies with young children in schools (Westlund et al., 2016)
Summary: an autonomous social robotic learning companion was deployed in three preschool classrooms at an American public school for two months. Before and after this deployment, the teachers and teaching assistants who worked in the classrooms are asked about their views on the use of social robots in preschool education. These teachers generally expected the robot to be disruptive, but found that it was not, and furthermore, had numerous positive ideas about the robot's potential as a new educational tool for their classrooms.
Roles
The next articles are classified under the topic roles:
- The scenario and design process of childcare robot, PaPeRo. (Osada, Ohnaka & Sato, 2006)
Summary: Eight applications for the use of robots in childcare were looked into, concerning the development of personal robots: conversation, face recognition, touch, roll-call, quiz-master, phoning, greetings and story teller. After testing in the field, the most important conclusion was that giving a robot a personality made it more interesting for toddlers.
- Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center. (Tanaka, Cicourel & Movellan, 2007)
Summary: This paper tried to find out whether real bonding between robots and toddlers was possible, as it was not really shown in the past. By immersing a SotA robot in in a nursery school, it was found that contact between the toddlers and the robot improved over time and they begun to more and more treat it as a human being. In this research, the robot was not operating autonomous but it is concluded that the technology available should be able to autonomous bond and socialize with human toddlers for a significant period of time.
- A Review on the Use of Robots in Education and Young Children. (Toh, Causo, Tzuo, Chen & Yeo, 2016).
Summary: The robot's influence on children's skills development could be grouped into four major categories: cognitive, conceptual, language and social skills.
- Should we welcome robot teachers? (Sharkey, 2016)
Summary: This article investigates robots in classrooms in four different scenario’s: a robot teacher, a robot companion/peer, a care-elicting robot and a telepresence robot. Multiple ethical issues are identified: the privacy of students, the loss of human contact, the deception of students and the question of accountability. The writer concludes that human teachers should not be replaced by robot teachers, and robots’ primary use in classrooms should be for tasks that a human teacher can’t do. In tasks the teacher normally does, the human will outperform the robot.
- Kindergarten assistive robotics (KAR) as a tool for spatial cognition development in pre-school education. (Keren, Ben-David & Fridin, 2012)
Summary: Kindergarten Assistive Robotics (KAR) is an innovative tool that promotes children’s development through social interaction. This study describes how KAR assists kindergarten educational staff in the teaching geometrical thinking, one of the aspects of spatial cognition by engaging the children in play-like interaction. One of the purposes of the KAR system is to promote children’s motor development. KAR can also promote children’s cognitive development in preschool education, for example by storytelling. In the present study we describe the use of KAR to promote children’s geometrical thinking, one of the aspects of spatial cognition.
- Storytelling by a kindergarten social assistive robot: A tool for constructive learning in preschool education. (Fridin, 2014)
Summary: Kindergarten Social Assistive Robotics (KindSAR) is a novel technology that offers kindergarten staff an innovative tool for achieving educational aims through social interaction. This robot served as a teacher assistant by telling prerecorded stories to small groups of children while incorporating song and motor activities in the process. Storytelling is essential for children’s development of language expression, logical thinking, imagination, and creativity. The primary purpose of KindSAR is to provide assistance to the staff by engaging the children in educational games. The technology potentially provides a valuable contribution to the existing repertoire of tools for children’s cognitive and social development. KindSAR provides children and the educational staff with detailed feedback on the game/task performance and concurrently monitors children’s progress over time. Visual, audio, and task performance data can then be used both by kindergarten teams and for further study by researchers studying cognitive development. Second, productive though it may be for educational (and research) purposes, child–teacher interaction is often limited in view of the large number of children (35) in Israeli kindergarten classes and the small number of teachers (usually 2) per class.
- Kindergarten Social Assistive Robot (KindSAR) for children’s geometric thinking and metacognitive development in preschool education: A pilot study. (Keren & Fridin, 2014)
Summary: Kindergarten Social Assistive Robot (KindSAR) is an innovative tool promotes children’s development through social interaction. This pilot study demonstrates how KindSAR can assist educational staff in the teaching of geometric thinking and in promoting the metacognitive development by engaging children in interactive play activities. KindSAR is a pre-school educational application of a class of robots known as Social Assistive Robotics (SAR) that geometric thinking can be developed in preschoolers.
- Exploring the educational potential of robotics in schools: A systematic review (Benitti, 2012)
Summary: This article contains a systematic review of literature on performance of (mostly) educational robots in classrooms. It concludes that robots often have a positive impact on students’ learning of new concepts, especially in the STEM area. It also notes that the research on educational robot effectiveness is still quite limited.
- Shamsuddin, S., Yussof, H. & Ismail, L. (2012). Initial response of autistic children in human-robot interaction therapy with humanoid robot NAO. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6194716/ SUMMARY ???
- Storytelling robot helps children learn language. (Lu, 2019)
Summary: The article is about a robot called Tega. It is cute, fluffy and appears to boost language skills in young children. Tega read picture books to 67 children aged from 4 to 6 years in weekly one-on-one meetings lasting an hour. During the sessions, it asked questions to gauge the listener’s opinion and comprehension, quizzing them on a word’s meaning or getting them to draw conclusions about a character. All the children who played with Tega the robot ended up with improved vocabularies.
Acceptance
The next articles are classified under the topic acceptance:
- Social acceptance of a childcare support robot system. (Shiomi & Hagita, 2015)
Summary: This journal article looks into the social acceptance of robot technologies in childcare in comparison to two present childcare technologies, like baby food. Therefore, a web-based survey as well as a field test was performed. Confirming their hypothesis, the social acceptance of childcare robot system was less than of the known childcare support technologies. However, when tested in the field, the social acceptance was higher than following the web-based survey. To investigate acceptance, three points of view were used: safety and trustworthy, diligence, and decreasing workload. For designing a childcare support system, they interviewed teachers at nursery schools. They found out that there were two options where a robot could help: 1. robot system that helps with paperwork; and 2. robot system that entertains children.
- Breakdowns in children's interactions with a robotic tutor: A longitudinal study. (Serholt, 2018)
Summary: There are some problems faced in reality with a robotic tutor four of them stood out these were (1) the robot's inability to evoke initial engagement and identify misunderstandings, (2) confusing scaffolding, (3) lack of consistency and fairness, and finally, (4) controller problems.
- Toward a unified theory of consumer acceptance technology. (Kulviwat, Bruner, Kumar, Nasco & Clark, 2007)
Summary: Findings suggest that substantial improvement in the prediction of technology adoption decisions is possible by use of the CAT model with its integration of affect and cognition.
Ethics
The next articles are classified under the topic ethics:
- Additional elements on the use of robots for childcare. (Ruiz-del-Solar, 2010)
Summary: In other articles, issues like privacy, deception and psychological damage are raised concerning robots for childcare. This article contributes to that discussion. Following this article, four things should be looked in to: 1. Regulate robot usages such at with toys or some sport installations. Including informative messages could help. 2. Change the analysis based on the age of the group. Beneath 5 years, it is shown that using robots can be harmful, above, it isn't. 3. Use data stored by robots in ethical way and destroy it in the cases where the parents don't are the owner. Storing (and destroying) the data should be law enforced. 4. Receiving no care, which happens when children are left alone, is way worse than receiving robot care. Robots could be a solution to the problems that arise from being home alone often.
- Dry your eyes: Examining the roles of robots for childcare applications. (Feil-Seifer & Matarić, 2010)
Summary: Sharkey & Sharkey (2010) rose ethical questions about using robots for childcare. The argument for this was that the use of robots could lead to social neglect of the child. For this scenario to happen, the parents and children should be convinced that the robot is more capable than it actually is. It is shown that even children see the limitations of robots in an early stage. Thus, robots may facilitate some issues, they are not specific to robots as humans are very well capable of detecting the flaws. Detecting them not is just bad parenting. The argument is based on the assumption that robots will replace human interaction. However, it is shown that robot technologies can also improve human-human interaction by supplementing it.
- Robot Lies in Health Care: When Is Deception Morally Permissible? (Matthias, 2015)
Summary: This article deals with the ethical problem of social robots being deceptive towards humans. It concludes with four requirements that would make deception morally permissible.
Technology
- Autonomous spherical mobile robot for child-development studies. (Michaud et al., 2005)
Summary: This article concerns the design of a robot aimed at children aged 12-24 months. It gives insight into factors that are important when designing a robot for young children: for example it should be robust and easy to understand. Another factor is showing intentionality. Children will be more engaged with objects when the objects seem to have a will, e.g. they can move independently.
- Child’s Perception of Robot’s Emotions: Effects of Platform, Context and Experience (Cohen, Looije & Neerincx, 2014)
Summary: Two robots are compared: the NAO which cannot change its facial features but has a movable body and the iCat, which can change its facial features but does not have a body. The conclusion is that children correctly recognized emotions in both robots at a high rate. Therefore facial features are not required for robots to express emotions.
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