Can a robot invigilator prevent cheating?
- PDF / 664,464 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 32 Downloads / 225 Views
OPEN FORUM
Can a robot invigilator prevent cheating? Omar Mubin1 · Massimiliano Cappuccio2,3 · Fady Alnajjar4 · Muneeb Imtiaz Ahmad5 · Suleman Shahid6 Received: 15 November 2019 / Accepted: 24 February 2020 © Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract One of the open questions in Educational robots is the role a robot should take in the classroom. The current focus in this area is on employing robots as a tool or in an assistive capacity such as the invigilator of an exam. With robots becoming commonplace in the classroom, inquiries will be raised regarding not only their suitability but also their ability to influence and control the morality and behaviour of the students via their presence. Therefore, as a means to test this cross-section of Educational robots with the underlying issue of morality and ethics we conducted an empirical study where the Nao robot invigilated an exam for a group of students. A between-subjects design (N = 56, 14 groups of 4 students) compared whether Nao was able to deter students from cheating and maintaining their discipline in comparison to a human invigilator or when there was no invigilator present. Our results showed that while explicit cheating rarely took place across all conditions, the students were significantly more talkative when they were invigilated by Nao. In conclusion, we discuss and speculate upon some of the ensuing implications towards not only the application of robots in education but also consequently the wider issue of the preservation of morality and ethics in a classroom in the presence of an agent. Keywords Nao · Robot · Cheating · Ethics · Virtuous robots · Educational robots
1 Introduction
* Fady Alnajjar [email protected] Omar Mubin [email protected] Massimiliano Cappuccio [email protected] Muneeb Imtiaz Ahmad [email protected] Suleman Shahid [email protected] 1
School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
2
School of Engineering and IT, ADFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
3
UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
4
College of Information Technology, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
5
Herriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
6
Department of Computer Science, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
The use of robots in education is a rapidly advancing research area (Belpaeme et al. 2018; Mubin et al. 2013). With improvements in robotic technology, artificial intelligence and form factors, there is growing recognition of the impact humanoid robots can have in educational contexts (Ahmad et al. 2017). However, researchers have yet to agree on the most beneficial and appropriate roles that humanoid robots can partake in educational scenarios and how such roles can best be integrated within the work of teachers (Belpaeme et al. 2018). Prospects of robots completely replacing and substituting human teachers in the long term are neither desirable nor realistic (Lee et al. 2008;
Data Loading...
