Acceptable social robots in education: A value sensitive parent perspective

Social robots are a promising new technological tool with numerous opportunities for education. However, they also introduce new moral challenges. Various studies report on moral values that are at risk of being undermined by the introduction of social robots in education, such as privacy, accountability, and human contact, and address the need for guidelines for introducing and designing social robots. Until now, the moral values held by parents that are influenced by the introduction of social robots in education have been understudied, although they are a key stakeholder in the education process. The aim of this exploratory study is to identify the moral values held by parents that are influenced by the introduction of social robots, and gain a better understanding of the moral conceptions held by parents regarding social robots in primary schools.

Through data gathered from focus group sessions with parents, we identified and categorised their concerns and opportunities linked to implementing social robots in education. These opportunities and concerns form the basis for analysing the moral values held by parents that are affected by the introduction of these social robots. In order to identify and conceptualise the relevant moral values for parents, we mapped the opportunities and concerns to a list of relevant moral values regarding social robots and education earlier identified in the literature. This resulted in a set of twelve relevant moral values held by parents that are influenced by the introduction of social robots in education (i.e., psychological welfare, happiness, efficiency, usability, human contact, privacy, security, safety, accountability, flexibility, responsibility, and dependability).

Overall, parents considered the robots to be of possible aid for their children as learning collaborators but were also worried about the potentially negative social implications and a wide range of other prevalent concerns, such as privacy issues. The insights can be used to create the necessary moral guidelines towards an ethical implementation of social robots in education.