Long-term User Experience of Children with a Social Robot during Musical Instrument Practice.

Abstract

The current study aimed to study long term user experience, specifically when using social robots in music education, the question posed was: does the user experience change in the long term and if so, in what ways? The study consisted of a seven-week experiment, during which 20 participants had musical instrument practice sessions twice a week with a social robot named pepper. A mixed method design was used to gather both quantitative and qualitative data on user experience. The quantitative data was gathered using a modified version of the UEQ consisting of 12 questions, while the qualitative data was gathered using the Memoline tool coupled with a semi-structured interview. The results showed no significant change in the hedonic and pragmatic qualities of the user experience. This means these scales were stable over time. This could potentially be explained by the absence of the novelty effect. A significant change was found in the pragmatic scale, which can be explained by a multitude of reasons including a possible increase in familiarity. Several limitations in the study were present, ranging from small sample sizes to an unequal number of repeats across the participants. We urge researchers to use these results and expand upon them with further studies.