DeSCarTes
Determining students' characteristics using educational robot technologies

  • Croatian Science Foundation
  • Period: 15 January 2024. - 14 January 2028
  • Head of the project: Ana Sović Kržić (FER)
  • Members: Ivana Storjak (FER), Ljiljana Puškar (FER), Tomislav Jagušt (FER), Renata Geld (FF), Katarina Faraguna (FF)
  • About the project:
    The aim of the DESCARTES project is to find an answer to the question of whether educational robots can help determine students' cognitive abilities (e.g., attention, perception, memory, spatial orientation, etc.).
    Educational robots are suited for students considering their form and functionality - they provide a familiar environment as the logical successors of toys, cohere the abstract with the physical, encourage creativity and enable the simultaneous work of all students in the class, and are therefore an ideal tool for predicting measurable cognitive characteristics of students.
    Within the project, workshops will be designed using educational robotic technologies, which will aid in stimulating students' cognitive functions of research interest (e.g., maintaining and directing attention, visual-motor skills, spatial orientation, etc.). Data from the robot and students’ physiological signals collected during the workshop will be analyzed using machine learning methods and validated using the standardized tests of students' cognitive abilities.
    The results of the project will benefit educational interventions and teachers by advancing the understanding of their students and providing an opportunity that each individual child receives appropriate support depending on personal potentials or difficulties.
Status: ongoing