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Service Robots for Fashion Retail Stores: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

Service robots provide retailers with new opportunities to innovate their in-store service offerings. Despite advances made in the fields of human-robot interaction, information systems, and marketing, there is relatively little known about how to apply a service robot in retailing. In this paper we aim to shed light on this issue by exploring the added value, roles, and prototyping of a service robot in fashion retailing. Using two Dutch fashion stores as real-life settings, we apply differentinteraction techniques (observation, interview, survey, structured role play, prototyping) to generate first insights and obtain lessons learned. The results of our study suggest that fashion retailers would benefit most from using service robots for communication of promotions and provision of product information. When applying service robots to these use cases, customers seem to prefer briefly and clearly expressed information that is communicated in a style that matches (in-)store communications. Still, the lack of personal attention and social support associated with a service robot makes retailers and store personnel rather reluctant to use them for their service excellence-oriented stores.

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Service Robots for Fashion Retail Stores: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

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The potential of robotics for the development and wellbeing of children with disabilities as we see it

BACKGROUND: Rapid technological development has been opening new possibilities for children with disabilities. In particular, robots can enable and create new opportunities in therapy, rehabilitation, education, or leisure. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to share experiences, challenges and learned lessons by the authors, all of them with experience conducting research in the field of robotics for children with disabilities, and to propose future directions for research and development. METHODS: The article is the result of several consensus meetings to establish future research priorities in this field. CONCLUSIONS: This article outlines a research agenda for the future of robotics in childcare and supports the establishment of R4C – Robots for Children, a network of experts aimed at sharing ideas, promoting innovative research, and developing good practices on the use of robots for children with disabilities. RESULTS: Robots have a huge potential to support children with disabilities: they can play the role of a play buddy, of a mediator when interacting with other children or adults, they can promote social interaction, and transfer children from the role of a spectator of the surrounding world to the role of an active participant. To fulfill their potential, robots have to be “smart”, stable and reliable, easy to use and program, and give the just-right amount of support adapted to the needs of the child. Interdisciplinary collaboration combined with user centered design is necessary to make robotic applications successful. Furthermore, real-life contexts to test and implement robotic interventions are essential to refine them according to real needs.

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The potential of robotics for the development and wellbeing of children with disabilities as we see it

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Preparing teachers to teach robotics in primary schools

We are in the process of preparing a teaching experiment on robotics in primary schools. In relation to this, we investigate in this paper whether it is possible to prepare teachers adequately to implement the intended pedagogy with the help of an in-service teacher education course that we developed. In view of the forthcoming teaching experiment, we were especially interested in the content and character of the knowledge, insights and attitudes of the teachers. We therefore capitalized on qualitative measures. We report how teachers developed the required knowledge and skills in three domains, i.e. subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. We examined whether teachers were able to accommodate the content knowledge, concepts and approaches we proposed, whether they developed a personalized version of pedagogical content knowledge, and whether they increased their pedagogic ability with respect to scaffolding pupils' learning of robotics. We draw some conclusions with regard to the professional development of primary school teachers in areas of science and technology with which they in general are unfamiliar.

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Do You Care for Robots That Care?

Abstract: Background: There has been a rapid increase in the population of senior citizens in many countries. The shortage of caregivers is becoming a pressing concern. Robots are being deployed in an attempt to fill this gap and reduce the workload of caregivers. This study explores how healthcare robots are perceived by trainee care professionals. Methods: A total of 2365 students at different vocational levels completed a questionnaire, rating ethical statements regarding beneficence, maleficence, justice, autonomy, utility, and use intentions with regard to three different types of robots (assistive, monitoring, and companion) along with six control variables: gender, age, school year, technical skills, interest in technology, and enjoying working with computers.

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Attitudes towards Social Robots in Education

While social robots bring new opportunities for education, they also come with moral challenges. Therefore, there is a need for moral guidelines for the responsible implementation of these robots. When developing such guidelines, it is important to include different stakeholder perspectives. Existing (qualitative) studies regarding these perspectives however mainly focus on single stakeholders. In this exploratory study, we examine and compare the attitudes of multiple stakeholders on the use of social robots in primary education, using a novel questionnaire that covers various aspects of moral issues mentioned in earlier studies. Furthermore, we also group the stakeholders based on similarities in attitudes and examine which socio-demographic characteristics influence these attitude types. Based on the results, we identify five distinct attitude profiles and show that the probability of belonging to a specific profile is affected by such characteristics as stakeholder type, age, education and income. Our results also indicate that social robots have the potential to be implemented in education in a morally responsible way that takes into account the attitudes of various stakeholders, although there are multiple moral issues that need to be addressed first. Finally, we present seven (practical) implications for a responsible application of social robots in education following from our results. These implications provide valuable insights into how social robots should be implemented

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Attitudes towards Social Robots in Education

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Spotless? Perceived Cleanliness in Service Environments

This dissertation presents research on customers’ perceptions of cleanliness in service environments. The research contributes to the gap in the literature on cleanliness examined from a customer perspective, and adds to the understanding of environmental cues that influence perceived cleanliness. Part one of the dissertation includes the operationalisation of the concept of perceived cleanliness and the development of an instrument to measure perceived cleanliness. Results showed that perceived cleanliness consists of three dimensions: cleaned, fresh, and uncluttered. Next, the Cleanliness Perceptions Scale (CP-scale) was developed and validated in different service environments, resulting in a 12 item questionnaire that can be used to measure perceived cleanliness in service environments. Part two includes the experimental research on the effects of different environmental cues on perceived cleanliness. It furthermore explores to what extent the effects of these environmental cues on perceived cleanliness can be explained by the concept of priming. The experiments demonstrated that particular environmental cues influence perceived cleanliness: the visible presence of cleaning staff, light colour, light scent, and uncluttered architecture positively influence customers’ perceptions of cleanliness in service environments. Also, empirical support was found for priming as one of the mechanisms involved in the effects.Part three reflects on the implications of the dissertation for theory and practice. The research provides knowledge that is relevant for the fields of facility management, service marketing, social psychology, and environmental psychology. The dissertation improves the understanding of the concept of perceived cleanliness by enabling scholars and practitioners to measure the concept and the effects of particular environmental cues in service environments.

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Spotless? Perceived Cleanliness in Service Environments

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Making IBSE durable through pre-service teacher education

How can we make Inquiry-Based Science and Mathematics Education (IBSME) durable? …. by incorporating it in the pre-service programs for elementary teachers! With pre-service students the training can be much more intensive than with inservice teachers. To have an impact in the classroom the minimum contact time in IBSME in-service and coaching has to be more than 90 hours (Supovitz & Turner, 2000). That number is hard to achieve in in-service but it is quite possible in preservice teacher education. From 9 – 11 January 2013 the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) hosted a field-visit sponsored by the EU Fibonacci project with a focus on pre-service teacher education. HvA developed two programs to strengthen IBSME in pre-service. One is an elective minor (30 ECTS) Science and Technology Education in the regularelementary teacher education program. The other is a pre-service program for academically talented students jointly developed by the University of Amsterdam and the Hogeschool of Amsterdam with inquiry as a major emphasis. The two programs are described in chapters 1 & 3 in this booklet. If you are still wondering what IBSE is, then read chapter 2 of Ana Blagotinsek of the University of Slovenia. She describes a neat example of an IBSE process with students in elementary teacher education. How do you start with a real worldquestion and initially little knowledge, and how do you investigate the question and eventually generate the knowledge needed to answer it? During the field-visit each participant presented one particularly successful approach in teacher training, for example, training teachers by ‘model teaching’ activities with these teachers’ own pupils. This method was used in different ways by 4 participants in different countries. They describe this in chapters 4 – 7. In chapter 8 colleague Frans Van Mulken describes the development of a lessonseries on graphs, rate of change, and speed using inquiry strategies inspired by the late mathematician and mathematics educator Hans Freudenthal. He also describes how pre-service students could be trained to teach the lesson series as inquiry. Simultaneously with this booklet, a Dutch booklet is published with overlapping contents but focused more on the Dutch context.

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Making IBSE durable through pre-service teacher education

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Enhancing Service Interactions with Conversational Agents

In de afgelopen jaren hebben technologische ontwikkelingen de aard van dienstverlening ingrijpend veranderd (Huang & Rust, 2018). Technologie wordt steeds vaker ingezet om menselijke servicemedewerkers te vervangen of te ondersteunen (Larivière et al., 2017; Wirtz et al., 2018). Dit stelt dienstverleners in staat om meer klanten te bedienen met minder werknemers, waardoor de operationele efficiëntie toeneemt (Beatson et al., 2007). Deze operationele efficiëntie leidt weer tot lagere kosten en een groter concurrentievermogen. Ook voor klanten kan de inzet van technologie voordelen hebben, zoals betere toegankelijkheid en consistentie, tijd- en kostenbesparing en (de perceptie van) meer controle over het serviceproces (Curran & Meuter, 2005). Mede vanwege deze beoogde voordelen is de inzet van technologie in service-interacties de afgelopen twee decennia exponentieel gegroeid. De inzet van zogenaamde conversational agents is een van de belangrijkste manieren waarop dienstverleners technologie kunnen inzetten om menselijke servicemedewerkers te ondersteunen of vervangen (Gartner, 2021). Conversational agents zijn geautomatiseerde gesprekspartners die menselijk communicatief gedrag nabootsen (Laranjo et al., 2018; Schuetzler et al., 2018). Er bestaan grofweg drie soorten conversational agents: chatbots, avatars, en robots. Chatbots zijn applicaties die geen virtuele of fysieke belichaming hebben en voornamelijk communiceren via gesproken of geschreven verbale communicatie (Araujo, 2018;Dale, 2016). Avatars hebben een virtuele belichaming, waardoor ze ook non-verbale signalen kunnen gebruiken om te communiceren, zoals glimlachen en knikken (Cassell, 2000). Robots, ten slotte, hebben een fysieke belichaming, waardoor ze ook fysiek contact kunnen hebben met gebruikers (Fink, 2012). Conversational agents onderscheiden zich door hun vermogen om menselijk gedrag te vertonen in service-interacties, maar op de vraag ‘hoe menselijk is wenselijk?’ bestaat nog geen eenduidig antwoord. Conversational agents als sociale actoren Om succesvol te zijn als dienstverlener, is kwalitatief hoogwaardige interactie tussen servicemedewerkers en klanten van cruciaal belang (Palmatier et al., 2006). Dit komt omdat klanten hun percepties van een servicemedewerker (bijv. vriendelijkheid, bekwaamheid) ontlenen aan diens uiterlijk en verbale en non verbale gedrag (Nickson et al., 2005; Specht et al., 2007; Sundaram & Webster, 2000). Deze klantpercepties beïnvloeden belangrijke aspecten van de relatie tussen klanten en dienstverleners, zoals vertrouwen en betrokkenheid, die op hun beurt intentie tot gebruik, mond-tot-mondreclame, loyaliteit en samenwerking beïnvloeden (Hennig-Thurau, 2004; Palmatier et al., 2006).Er is groeiend bewijs dat de uiterlijke kenmerken en communicatieve gedragingen (hierna: menselijke communicatieve gedragingen) die percepties van klanten positief beïnvloeden, ook effectief zijn wanneer ze worden toegepast door conversational agents (B.R. Duffy, 2003; Holtgraves et al., 2007). Het zogenaamde ‘Computers Als Sociale Actoren’ (CASA paradigma vertrekt vanuit de aanname dat mensen de neiging hebben om onbewust sociale regels en gedragingen toe te passen in interacties met computers, ondanks het feit dat ze weten dat deze computers levenloos zijn (Nass et al., 1994). Dit kan verder worden verklaard door het fenomeen antropomorfisme (Epley et al., 2007; Novak & Hoffman, 2019). Antropomorfisme houdt in dat de aanwezigheid van mensachtige kenmerken of gedragingen in niet-menselijke agenten, onbewust cognitieve schema's voor menselijke interactie activeert (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007; M.K. Lee et al., 2010). Door computers te antropomorfiseren komen mensen tegemoet aan hun eigen behoefte aan sociale verbinding en begrip van de sociale omgeving (Epley et al., 2007; Waytz et al., 2010). Dit heeft echter ook tot gevolg dat mensen cognitieve schema’s voor sociale perceptie toepassen op conversational agents.

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Enhancing Service Interactions with Conversational Agents

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Envisioning and Questioning Near Future Urban Robotics

Robotic services, which have started to appear in urbanenvironments, are going to transform our society.Designers of these robots are not only required tomeet technical and legal challenges, but also addressthe potential social, political, and ethical consequencesof their design choices. In this paper, we present aworkshop format with its related tools intendedfor enabling speculation about such possible futuresand fostering reflection on potential socio-ethicalimplications that might support/oppose these futures.We report the results and discussion of one particularworkshop case, in which the implementation of twoparticular robotic services for a city was envisionedand questioned, i.e., surveillance and delivery of goods.By discussing the results, we illustrate how such aworkshop format might be beneficial for setting theagenda for a more conscious design of urban robots andorienting future research towards meaningful themesrelated to the emerging coexistence scenarios betweencitizens and robots.

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Service Robots for Fashion Retail Stores: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

The potential of robotics for the development and wellbeing of children with disabilities as we see it

Preparing teachers to teach robotics in primary schools

Do You Care for Robots That Care?

Attitudes towards Social Robots in Education

Spotless? Perceived Cleanliness in Service Environments

Making IBSE durable through pre-service teacher education

Enhancing Service Interactions with Conversational Agents

Envisioning and Questioning Near Future Urban Robotics

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Producten 519

Service Robots for Fashion Retail Stores: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

The potential of robotics for the development and wellbeing of children with disabilities as we see it

Preparing teachers to teach robotics in primary schools

Do You Care for Robots That Care?

Attitudes towards Social Robots in Education

Spotless? Perceived Cleanliness in Service Environments

Making IBSE durable through pre-service teacher education

Enhancing Service Interactions with Conversational Agents

Envisioning and Questioning Near Future Urban Robotics

Projecten 1

BOARDing “come-on-board”