Ice-Breakers, Turn-Takers and Fun-Makers: Exploring Robots for Groups with Teenagers

TL;DR

The paper tackles how to enhance teenage group interactions using a social robot designed through participatory methods. It combines focus groups, co-design of an action space, and in-situ wizarding over a two-week summer program to study a robotic group assistant. Findings show groups vary along a spectrum of need for the robot, with the robot evolving from ice-breaker to turn-manager to fun-maker as group dynamics develop, and reveal how action designs mirror individual and group traits. The work demonstrates the value of teen-centered, peer-involved robot design for education and public settings, and points to future LEADOR-like workflows to train autonomous, socially beneficial group-robot interactions.

Abstract

Successful, enjoyable group interactions are important in public and personal contexts, especially for teenagers whose peer groups are important for self-identity and self-esteem. Social robots seemingly have the potential to positively shape group interactions, but it seems difficult to effect such impact by designing robot behaviors solely based on related (human interaction) literature. In this article, we take a user-centered approach to explore how teenagers envisage a social robot "group assistant". We engaged 16 teenagers in focus groups, interviews, and robot testing to capture their views and reflections about robots for groups. Over the course of a two-week summer school, participants co-designed the action space for such a robot and experienced working with/wizarding it for 10+ hours. This experience further altered and deepened their insights into using robots as group assistants. We report results regarding teenagers' views on the applicability and use of a robot group assistant, how these expectations evolved throughout the study, and their repeat interactions with the robot. Our results indicate that each group moves on a spectrum of need for the robot, reflected in use of the robot more (or less) for ice-breaking, turn-taking, and fun-making as the situation demanded.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: The group, robot and teaching setup: teen left is controlling the robot's actions (Robot Controller, RC); teen right is reporting on group behavior (Group Observer, GO); the other three teens are working on a discussion-based group activity assisted by the robot (Group Members, GM).
• Figure 2: This timeline provides an overview of the different activities and methods used to explore a social robot group assistant for teenagers.
• Figure 3: Tablet interface participants' used to control the robot (utilising the co-designed action space) during group activity sessions. Users' had to select the desired action and could identify an individual target GM where appropriate. Selecting an action only (with no individual target) resulted in an instance of the group-targeting version of that action.
• Figure 4: Use of the robot's actions across the groups. The use of actions reflects observed differences in how those groups behaved together and how therefore the robot could help best. Best viewed in color.
• Figure 5: Use of the robot's action space toward two very different participants (extroverted W4 versus introverted W2). The received actions seemingly reflect their different personalities. Best viewed in color.