International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction最新文献

Address forms are an important element of communication and can both reflect and affect how social robots are responded to. However, their effects on children's responses to social robots remain understudied. To fill this gap initially, we conducted an online repeated-measures experiment to investigate the effects of a robot's use of personal (“you”) versus impersonal (“children”) address forms on children's involvement in the interaction, their perception of the robot (in terms of cognitive and affective perspective-taking and social support) and their relationship with it (i.e., feelings of closeness and trust). Children (N = 282, age 8–9) watched two videos of a Nao robot with one week in between, in which the robot addressed them either personally or impersonally. We expected that children would respond more positively to a robot that always used personal address forms than to a robot that always used impersonal address forms, resulting in higher scores on all aforementioned variables. In addition, we expected that a change from impersonal to personal address forms over encounters would positively influence children's involvement, perception of the robot, and relationship with it, and vice versa for a change from personal to impersonal address forms. However, we did not find any significant effects of address form. We discuss the lack of significant findings in light of the differences between communication with humans versus machines.

Teens often encounter cyberbullying on social media. One promising way to reduce cyberbullying is through empowering teens to stand up for their peers and cultivating prosocial norms online. While there is no shortage of bystander interventions that have shown potential, little research has explored designing chatbots with users to provide a contextualized and embedded “learning at the moment” experience for bystanders. This study involved teens and educators in two design sessions: an in-depth interview to identify the barriers that prevent upstanding behaviors, and interaction with the “social media co-pilot'' chatbot prototype to identify design guidelines to empower teens to overcome these barriers. Qualitative analysis on the conversations from the two design sessions revealed three factors that curb teens' upstanding behaviors: a) inadequate knowledge about social norms, appropriate language, and consequences, b) inhibitive emotions such as fear of retaliation and confrontation; c) lack of empathy toward their peers. Key parameters were also identified to shape chatbot responses to encourage upstanding behaviors, such as a) adopting voices representing multiple roles, b) empathetic, friendly and encouraging tone, c) reflective, specific and relatable language and d) appropriate length. These insights inform the design of personalized and scalable education programs and moderation tools to combat cyberbullying.

Training in the area of CCI has become a current topic of debate. It is necessary to address the specificities related to this target audience in terms of ethical aspects, evaluation techniques and instruments and the appropriate approach to content, forms of interaction, among others. This work focuses on a project-based learning experience that is being developed with students in the area of computer science, who work on the development of educational serious games aimed at children. Different axes related to CCI training and educational game design are approached in a phase-based process and an analysis of cognitive residues that are addressed is also included. The project developed in 2023, related to healthy eating, is presented as an example of the experiences carried out with students. The results indicate that this type of proposals are attractive and motivating for the students involved, who participate in real projects with stakeholders and children.

Interactive speech technologies such as Siri and Amazon Echo allow people to search for information via speech. These systems generally take a single spoken statement or query as input, which may not be enough to fully capture the user’s information need. Therefore, multi-turn conversations have been proposed to establish more detail. A conversational approach can particularly benefit children who experience more difficulty formulating precise queries. We carried out a study with 32 children comparing multi-turn conversations with single-shot (or Query-Response) interactions. We compared the descriptions of the information needs, as well as children’s search experience. Findings indicate that more elaborate descriptions of children’s information needs (more keywords) were gathered through conversational search, leading to more focused search results compared with the Query-Response search. Further analysis of children’s responses yielded insights into their preferences for conversing with speech-based interfaces. This paper also offers design and methodological recommendations for conversational agents that support children’s information search.

Digital musical instruments (DMIs) offer significant potential for use in special educational needs (SEN) schools. DMIs can provide access to contemporary musical experiences that align with students’ life experiences, as well as active music making for individuals experiencing various barriers to the use of conventional musical instruments. Currently, there is no design framework for DMIs that addresses the specific context of SEN schools. However, research suggests the importance of prioritizing the context of use over the technology in design approaches. To address this gap, we integrate the results of a year-long development project in a SEN school into a social-ecological design framework. We extend an existing DMI design framework to address the unique environment of SEN schools. Our proposed framework serves as a planning and evaluation tool, providing a reference point for future design projects. It helps to determine which stakeholders to involve, define their roles, and it includes additional aspects to address in the goal definition and design process. Our findings highlight the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the design process, including students, teachers, and assistants. In this regard, we identified a potential tension between stakeholders’ personal interests and their role as advocates for the musicians, which can have both positive and negative effects on the design process. Our research underscores the need for stakeholders to understand the use of technology, pedagogical strategies for effectively using the instruments with individual students while meeting their social-emotional support needs, and musical knowledge, including non-classical music genres. We suggest that the necessary technical, pedagogical, and musical knowledge (TPACK) be inscribed into the instruments themselves and supplemented by educational materials and teacher training. Furthermore, our study emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the design process, design decisions, and pedagogical strategies for different use cases.

Makerspaces and Fab Labs are growing in number all over the world, holding the potential to empower children and adolescents. They form an important pathway to provide young people with access to digital manufacturing technologies while fostering self-determination, collaboration, and creativity. We explore how the engagement in Fab Lab based leisure maker activities may be promoted, taking into account both the perspectives of adolescents and the potential of surrounding systems. For this, we conducted focus group discussions with N = 61 non-maker, adolescent girls and boys from 6th to 9th grade, to scrutinize hindering and promoting factors of their engagement in leisure maker activities, and to explore their preferences regarding the involvement of parents, teachers and peers while considering the ecological sustainability of the activities. A reflexive thematic analysis identified the hindering and promoting factors across different aspects of maker activities such as the purpose, location and setting, content, and learning processes. Implications for the promotion and design of maker activities, as well as implications for further research, are discussed.

Child Computer Interaction (CCI) research stresses the importance of nurturing children's designer and maker identities; children should be growing up as future technology protagonists, who are driving technology development and critically reflecting on it. While the importance of designer and maker skills has been emphasized in the CCI literature, studies focusing on children's identity development are scarcer. This paper starts to fill this research gap. We develop a theoretical framework on children's technology protagonist identity based on multidisciplinary literature base. Based on pre- and post-interview dataset from a long-term critical design and making project with several school-classes, we identify divergent aspects of protagonist identity among children: they position themselves variably as technology users, designers, makers, critics and activists. Different designer and maker identity trajectories are also identified. The paper contributes to CCI research on identity and CCI discourse on technology protagonists and children's technology education.

This paper elaborates on a series of Child–Computer Interaction courses conducted at three universities in Germany. It emphasizes the integration of hands-on activities and a significant project development component, allowing students to practically apply and enhance their CCI knowledge. The article details the course structure, students’ engagement, and the evolution of content, underlining the importance of experiential learning in CCI education. Additionally, it offers reflections on the outcomes and lessons learned, serving as a resource for university lecturers looking to incorporate similar courses in their curriculum.