Work

The Multilingual Student Support Robot

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: International students in UK universities often struggle with interactions in English, particularly on their first days in the country. We have developed a multilingual support robot tailored to their needs. To evaluate the performance of the robot, 60 international students asked the robot, in either English or their native language (Modern Standard Arabic or Mandarin Chinese), for support on topics including campus directions, local tax exemption, financial aid, and official documents. Overall, users preferred to use their native language when interacting with the support robot, and using their native language in the robot interaction also had a positive effect on their perception of the interaction itself.

Source: IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

DOI: 10.1109/ro-man63969.2025.11217768

Authors: Shaul Ashkenazi, Gabriel Skantze, Jane Stuart-Smith, Mary Ellen Foster

Institutions: University of Glasgow, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Social Robot Interaction and HRI

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W4415821806