Given the rapid advancements in robot technology, the functions of robots in society are continuously expanding and diversifying.
Assessment instructions:
Given the rapid advancements in robot technology, the functions of robots in society are continuously expanding and diversifying. Within robotics, the field of social robotics has been receiving increasing attention. A social robot has been defined as “an autonomous or semi-autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans by following the behavioral norms expected by the people with whom the robot is intended to interact” (Bartneck & Forlizzi, 2004, p. 592). Because of the close nature of human-robot interaction in social robotics, understanding human user perspectives is particularly important. Quantitative surveys have been developed especially for that purpose, such as the Godspeed questionnaire (Bartneck, Kulić, Croft, & Zoghbi, 2009), which inquires into anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety. Other questionnaires assess the extent to which individuals may have negative attitudes towards robots (Nomura, Suzuki, Kanda, & Kato, 2006a) or to what extent robots elicit feelings of anxiety (Nomura, Suzuki, Kanda, & Kato, 2006b). Further questionnaires have been developed to investigate cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards robots (Syrdal, Nomura, & Dautenhahn, 2013) or the extent to which respondents view the use of robots as ethically acceptable (Peca et al., 2016).
Apart from quantitative surveys, acceptability and likeability of social robots can also be investigated using a variety of qualitative methods. Write an essay that outlines how the choice of various different qualitative approaches affects the research questions that you may formulate to investigate the acceptability and likeability of social robots as well as the type of data analysis you would conduct. What are the strengths and limitations of each of these methods, and how may they contribute to the research field?
Limit your word count to within the range of 2,500-3,000 words. Your essay will thus have to be sufficiently concise yet still achieve the goal of providing an overview that allows the reader to be able to make an informed decision regarding the selection of suitable qualitative research methods to investigate acceptability and likeability of social robots. You can refer to existing research studies to illustrate how well methods have been applied in social robotics or use examples from related research areas if none are available for social robots. Occasionally, it might help to contrast with quantitative methods, although you have to keep within the word limit.
Note: Please write in British English, needs to be written to the highest academic standard, APA 6th formatted and plagiarism free. Please use all references that are provided for you and add some of your own.
References:
Bartneck, C., & Forlizzi, J. (2004). A design-centred framework for social human-robot interaction. In RO-MAN 2004: 13th IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, September 20-22, 2004, Kurashiki (pp. 591-594). New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi:10.1109/ROMAN.2004.1374827
Bartneck, C., Kulić, D., Croft, E., & Zoghbi, S. (2009). Measurement instruments for the anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety of robots. International Journal of Social Robotics, 1(1), 71-81. doi:10.1007/s12369-008-0001-3
Nomura, T., Suzuki, T., Kanda, T., & Kato, K. (2006a). Measurement of negative attitudes toward robots. Interaction Studies, 7(3), 437-454. doi:10.1075/is.7.3.14nom
Nomura, T., Suzuki, T., Kanda, T., & Kato, K. (2006b). Measurement of anxiety toward robots. The 15th IEEE Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. doi:10.1109/ROMAN.2006.314462
Peca, A., Coeckelbergh, M., Simut, R., Costescu, C., Pintea, S., David, D., & Vanderborght, B. (2016). Robot enhanced therapy for children with autism disorders – measuring ethical acceptability. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 35(2), 54-66. doi:10.1109/MTS.2016.2554701
Syrdal, D. S., Nomura, T., & Dautenhahn, K. (2013). The Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire – results from a quantitative cross-cultural survey. In G. Herrmann, M. J. Pearson, A. Lenz, P. Bremner, A. Spiers, & U. Leonards (Eds.), Social Robotics. ICSR 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8239 (pp. 270-279). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02675-6_
Answer preview Given the rapid advancements in robot technology, the functions of robots in society are continuously expanding and diversifying. 
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