The Cross-cultural Acceptance of Tutoring Robots with Augmented Reality Services

Abstract

The difference of user’s perception seems to have been well reflected in the development of robot technology. In this study, we attempted to compare and analyze how cultural features in three different countries i.e. Korea, Japan, and Spain affect parents and children in accommodating tutoring robots for education. It was revealed that parents in Spain representing western countries are generally more inflexible and negative on purchasing tutoring robots than those of Korea and Japan, even though they have as high marketability as cleaning robots in the near future. The expectations of parents on the practical use, service of augmented reality, of tutoring robots turned out to be higher in Korea than in Spain and Japan. Japanese and Spanish parents hold more conservative attitudes toward tutoring robots than Korean. In contrast, Korean parents are most liberal and less resistant to educating their children by robots, probably due to the fact that e-Learning is widely used and has just begun to enter r-Learning in the Korean society. Augmented reality services of tutoring robots based on identification may promote latent purchasing power. However, the fact that a substantial number of students felt pressed despite positive expectation for contents based on identification in a class may provide useful information in setting up new guidelines for children served augmented reality by tutoring robots.