Rhonda McEwen
Papers
4
Total Citations
43
H-Index
3
About
Rhonda McEwen is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, child development, and educational technology, with a particular focus on how young children and families engage with social robots in naturalistic home environments. Her work has made a significant contribution to a field long dominated by controlled laboratory studies, by championing longitudinal, real-world research that captures the lived complexity of domestic robot use. McEwen's most influential study, garnering 25 citations, examined preschool children's long-term interactions with companion robots during shared reading activities, revealing nuanced patterns of engagement that short-term studies routinely miss. Her broader body of work interrogates what happens when social robots are retired or repurposed within families — a largely overlooked dimension of the robot lifecycle — and explores how physiological signals such as heart rate variability and electrodermal activity can objectively measure children's engagement across different reading modalities. By combining ethnographic observation with biometric measurement, McEwen bridges qualitative richness and quantitative rigor in ways that meaningfully advance our understanding of child-robot relationships. Her research has direct implications for educators, designers, and policymakers shaping the future of social robotics in family and early learning contexts.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4