Designing a Socially Assistive Robot for Education Through a Participatory Design Approach: Pivotal Principles for the Developers

Designing socially assistive robots (SARs) for educational purposes can be a challenging task for developers. Developers need to identify the combination of a particular set of features to include in the design of a SAR. Participatory design approaches can be a promising solution since stakeholders can suggest, through their involvement, the requirements that could meet their needs and expectations. Still, such approaches for designing a SAR for education are scattered and bewildering, focusing on aspects of the robot such as the role or the appearance. The current study aimed to map stakeholders’ requirements regarding the design of a SAR exploited for educational purposes as well as to provide a set of guiding design principles for developers. A qualitative focus group discussion took place, and the participants were 127 (65 were female) stakeholders from five European countries, representing various affiliations in the field of education. A deductive qualitative content analysis approach revealed 121 themes of analysis, which fitted into 11 theory-driven categories regarding the use of the SARs in the class settings, their appearance, and their voice commands. Additionally, 46 themes of analysis were classified under five new categories following an inductive approach. The results of the deductive and inductive content analysis were further exploited in two Two-Step Cluster Analyses. The analyses revealed five tentative combinations of the dimensions exploited for the design of a SAR sketched by education stakeholders. The findings of the current study are discussed, providing pivotal guiding principles for the developers of SARs for education.