Teachers' perspectives on social robots in education

Abstract

Research has shown that social robots carry potential to be used in an educational setting. The possibility to have multiple roles carried out by one tool does not only instigate curiosity but also raises concerns. Whereas practical challenges get tackled by rapid technological advances, the moral challenges often get overlooked. In this study, we examined the moral values related to educational robots from a teachers' perspective, by first identifying concerns and opportunities, and subsequently linking them to (moral) values. We conducted focus group sessions with teachers to explore their perceptions regarding concerns and opportunities related to educational robots. Teachers voiced several considerations ranging from having concerns towards privacy to seeing opportunities in adding friendship and attachment a robot could emanate.