BARTEK - a project with a focus on children, technology and early childhood education
Background and goals
Digital competencies are crucial for the future of learning, communication, and participation in Finnish society (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2022). Therefore, the early childhood education plan already includes a clear mission to support children's understanding of digitalization. Daycare centers are encouraged to use digital tools to promote creativity, collaboration skills, and literacy among children (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2022).
At Arcada, we see that research in digital solutions and robotics – specifically within early childhood education – needs to gain a stronger foothold in Finland. We need to develop robots that can understand and communicate in a way that children comprehend, while considering the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of the Finland-Swedish context. Language plays a key role in people's interaction with robots and is crucial for how we approach and relate to a social humanoid robot. This has also been shown by Arcada's own research in the field (Hägglund, Tigerstedt, Biström, Wingren, Andersson, Kuvaja Adolfsson, Penttinen & Espinosa-Leal, 2023; Kuvaja Adolfsson, Tigerstedt, Biström & Espinosa-Leal, 2024; Hägglund, S., Espinosa-Leal, L., Forss, Hägglund, Kuvaja-Adolfsson, Rautanen, Shcherbakov, & Tigerstedt, 2022).
We also see that the solutions developed for early childhood education must be reliable, safe, and user-friendly, so that they can be beneficial in a busy daycare environment and facilitate the work of the staff.
Project Team:
PI Dr Christa Tigerstedt
M.Sc Eva Edgren (early childhood education)
Phd Stud, M.Sc (eng) Dennis Biström
Objectives and benefits
Arcada's applied research in child-robot interaction aims to study how socially assistive robots (SAR) can complement and facilitate a safe learning environment in daycare centers. The research involves collaboration with experts in engineering and educational sciences, including the social work program at the university. Our goals include:
1. Increasing understanding of how digital solutions can support daily activities in daycare.
2. Developing solutions suitable for early childhood education.
3. Testing these solutions in practice and evaluating the results.
4. Researching child-robot interaction with both applied and knowledge-development purposes.
5. Reflecting and presenting research results in national and international contexts.
6. Enhancing Swedish-language social work education (including early childhood education) and continuing education at Arcada to strengthen daycare staff's technological competencies.
The overarching questions are how social humanoid robots can complement and facilitate a safe learning environment in daycare and what roles and tasks a social humanoid robot can have in a daycare context. The project aims to answer thematic research questions related to learning, such as how child-robot interaction can support a child's learning and how robots can support staff in their pedagogical work.
Results
The project contributes to increased understanding of how socially assistive robots can complement and facilitate a safe learning environment in Swedish-speaking daycare centers in Finland. The research results concretely in the development of Swedish-language social work education and continuing education to include the use of digital tools, increasing technological acceptance in Swedish-speaking early childhood education. In other words, we aim to contribute to a sustainable knowledge boost in the field. In the long term, the project is expected to lead to Swedish-speaking daycare staff gaining increased knowledge and understanding of how digital solutions can be integrated into daily activities, in accordance with the Finnish National Agency for Education's early childhood education plan (2022).
Sustainable development goals
