Robot illustrated: Exploring elementary students’ perceptions of robots via the draw-a-robot test

Abstract

Robotics education has drawn great attention in K-12 education worldwide. Hence, it is worthwhile to explore how students perceive robots. This exploratory study used the draw-a-picture technique to explore elementary school students’ perceptions of robots. A total of 1069 Chinese elementary school students were enrolled to illustrate how they perceive robots through the Draw-a-Robot Test (DART). A coding checklist (DART-C) was developed to capture the contents of student drawings. Data analysis showed that there are stereotypical perceptions of robots held by elementary school students. The majority of students portrayed a special robot doing services in a home-based scene with no human aside. In addition, remarkable cross-grade and cross-gender differences were identified in students’ perceptions of robots. Based on the findings, several implications were proposed for the future development of robotics education. Therefore, this study can set a solid foundation for future research on robotics education.