Unusual Artifacts: Linking Parents’ STEM Background and Children’s Animacy Judgments to Parent–Child Play with Robots
Research Contribution: Study Design and Data Collection
As part of my research contributions to Unusual Artifacts, I was responsible for designing and structuring the study to explore how family interactions influence children's perceptions of robotic animacy. This study aimed to investigate the social context of parent-child goal-directed play with an educational robot and assess whether children’s judgments of a robot’s animacy were influenced by age, parental STEM background, educational level, and the complexity of communication with the robot.
Study Design
The research was conducted at a children’s museum, where we recruited 72 parent-child dyads (children aged 3–6 years old). My role in study design focused on ensuring that data collection methods were rigorous, consistent, and effectively captured meaningful interactions between parents, children, and the robot.
We structured the study to include:
A goal-directed play activity where children and parents guided a robot (Dash, referred to as “Skye”) through a simple obstacle course.
Coding parent-child interactions, differentiating between simple commands (e.g., calling the robot’s name), complex commands (e.g., giving multi-step verbal instructions or pointing), and communication about the robot’s behavior.
A post-play animacy judgment task, where children assessed Skye’s animacy traits compared to other objects (e.g., a dog, a plant, a washing machine).
Parental survey data, capturing STEM background, education level, and general attitudes toward technology.
Data Collection Approach
To ensure accuracy and consistency in data collection, I helped develop:
A coding framework to analyze video recordings of parent-child play sessions, categorizing levels of interaction and communication.
Structured survey instruments to capture relevant parental background data.
Behavioral metrics to assess differences in children’s engagement and perception of the robot based on parental guidance.
Supervision and training of the research team, ensuring that data collection procedures were consistently followed and that research assistants were equipped with the necessary skills to interact effectively with participants and maintain data integrity.
Key Outcomes of Study Design
Our approach allowed us to capture rich qualitative and quantitative data, leading to insights such as:
Parents with STEM backgrounds were more likely to encourage complex interactions with the robot.
Children’s perceptions of the robot’s animacy were influenced by how much their parents communicated about the robot.
Older children with STEM-background parents used more complex commands, implying a shift in perceived robot capabilities based on parental influence.
This study design helped bridge research on child cognitive development and human-robot interaction, offering valuable implications for designing educational robotics and understanding social influences on children's technological reasoning.
For more details, see the full paper.
Parent and child guiding “Skye” the robot around the play mat at the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum.
Layout and key of Skye the robot’s pathing and behavior for the interaction study.