PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Are students willing to accept robotic support for learning when their attitudes toward educational robots are moderate? Probably not, as evidence from psychological research has suggested that attitudes predict how people will behave toward an attitude object. Consequently, a negative view of robots could represent a strong barrier to the deployment of robots in educational environments. Attitude change might facilitate a smooth introduction of educational robots into learning settings. Thus, the present research builds on the fact that actively including end users in the prototyping process of a robot might increase positive attitudes toward it. Indeed, our research is among the first works which demonstrate that participation in the prototyping process of an educational robot positively affected attitudes toward educational robots in general and significantly reduced educational robot anxiety. However, students' behavioral intentions toward educational robots were not influenced by participation. These findings raise intriguing questions regarding the relevance of user involvement in the development of robots. Therefore, the discussion focuses on how to improve this process and how user involvement in robot design processes provides a valuable contribution to the acceptance of social robots in everyday life.