Promoting Children's Critical Thinking Towards Robotics through Robot Deception

Abstract

The need for critically reflecting on the deceptive nature of advanced technologies, such as social robots, is urging academia and civil society to rethink education and the skills needed by future generations. The promotion of critical thinking, however, remains largely unaddressed within the field of educational robotics. To address this gap and question if and how robots can be used to promote critical thinking in young children's education, we conducted an explorative design study named Bringing Shybo Home. Through this study, in which a robot was used as a springboard for debate with twenty 8- to 9-year-old children at school, we exemplify how the deceptive nature of robots, if embraced and magnified in order for it to become explicitly controversial, can be used to nurture children's critical mindset.