Word Learning by a Sorting Card Game

The experiment involves Swedish middle school students as participants who are second language learners of English. Each participant will interact with a friendly social robot called Furhat and play a game with it. Before and after the experiment there will be pre-test and post-tests to understand how many words were learnt during the game.

PARTICIPATION AND EXPERIMENT SETTING

The participation in the experiment is completely voluntary which means you or your child could withdraw your participation at any point of the experiment. Each participant goes through one session of the experiment. Each session lasts around 60 minutes including the preparation of the participant and the post-test.

The robot used in the study is called Furhat. This social robot is stationary meaning that cannot move physically toward the participant and has a head on the table and is able to have neck movements and to show a human-like face, can talk with, listen to, and see the person it is communicating with. The robot appears and someone with the information provider and not a competitor. ( More about Furhat )

Some of the participants will interact with a physical robot, while some would play the same game but without the robot and interacting with a voice assistant. The voice assistant is the same as how the robot behaves.

A delayed online post-test will later (around 3 weeks after the main experiment) will be sent to the parents. They are asked not to talk about this with the child until the time they receive the test. Then the parents in an appropriate time on the same day maximum 3 days of receiving the link should sit with the child and ask them to fill in the form. This test should not take more than 10 minutes and can be done on any platform. Also, the parents should not help the child in any way for the results and also the students should not use any external help. They are required to only use their own knowledge. The answers to all these tests are of no intellectual, talent, or examination value. The answers only reflect the performance of such setup in language learning and do not assess any intellectual factors of the participant.

DATA

COLLECTION AND PROCESSING

During the experiment some data from the experiment and some data about the students will be collected by the experimenter. Prior to the experiment and along with this form the parents/guardians will also receive the link to an online form which includes some demographic and socio-economic information about the student. A list of all data collected during the experiment, the reasoning, and processing procedure follows:

• Demographic and Socio-Economic information: under the first integrated project of e-LADDA (IP1: Gender and population-level variables in language learning and use of digital tools) All these data will be anonymized untraceable to the participant.
• Pre-test and Word Learning: The answers on the pre- and post-test for the assessment of learning and setting the experiment.
• Video and Audio of participants playing the game: For analyzing the behavioral factor of participants toward the robot during the experiment, checking the results, analyzing the interactions, later reference if necessary.
• Gaze detection: tracking of the participant’s gaze direction during the experiment to analyze the main focus places of participant during such experiment setup
• Participant’s language proficiency: to analyze the effects of English language proficiency and knowledge of other languages on the performance.

STORAGE

All these data will be stored at the secure digital infrastructures of KTH Royal institute of Technology and do not exit the digital borders of European Union. All the collected data will remain available for the duration of the e-LADDA project for 5 years (end of 2026). Collection of some data are necessary for the participation and rejecting those equals to withdraw from participation (they are mentioned in detail within the form.). Some other data are not vital for this specific project but could potentially help enormously to the research community and the progress of science in language development.

ACCESS

The responsible researcher is the person who has full access to the stored data. The other researchers of the project could access the data just for the period of their direct involvement in this particular study. If agreed by the signee, the data could be available to the other researchers within the e-LADDA network for the duration of this project (2023).

ACCESSIBILITY, MODIFICATION, AND REMOVAL

Parent/guardian, or the participating child, can at any time before, during, or after the experiment withdraw from the experiment and request access, modification, or full removal of their data. This is possible by directly contacting the responsible researcher (until 2026) and the Data Protection Officer at KTH afterwards. Should you have any problem or face any threat regarding your data please contact the DPO before 2026 as well. After when the participants passes 16 years old the requests regarding data are accepted only from the data subject and not the guardian.

BENEFITS AND RISKS

The study will provide the students with a unique experience using a new digital technology that few people in the world have access to. Also, they potentially can learn a few new words in English language. The participation would expectedly also expand the Innovation and creativity in the students. The results of this experiment are expected to help millions of people for their language development, enhance the positive effect of social robots and avoid the possible negative effects of them on language development. It will have positive impact on many including expat children, refugees’ integration in the societies, reducing bias and stress in language learning.

This experiment setup and design does not pose any threat or risk in any way toward the participants. There is neither physical nor psychological manipulation or effects on the participants. All the utterances of the robot are pre-defined and there is no way the robot would behave any different than it is instructed to. All the participants will be introduced to the robot initially and in any rare case if a participant starts to feel uncomfortable the session will be terminated, and the participant could stop on their own will.