Technology as Teacher

Robots are increasingly a part of children’s lives—teaching in classrooms, comforting children in hospitals, and playing in their homes. This chapter reviews literature on children’s understanding and trust of robots, including the authors’ own emerging research addressing these topics empirically. It demonstrates that children’s understanding of the abilities and behaviors of robots affects whether children like and are willing to learn from robots. The chapter emphasizes that children’s beliefs about the psychological, social, and perceptual abilities of robots change with age and differentially impact children’s feelings toward and their willingness to learn from them. Empirical research addressing these issues is in its infancy, so the chapter concludes with suggestions for still more programmatic research on the questions of how children learn from, and how they come to understand smart technology—computers, smartphones, and especially humanoid robots.