Children, Robots, and Reproducibility: A review of recent reproducibility challenges in child-robot interaction

Abstract

Given the rapid advancements and shifting requirements in the field of Child-Robot Interaction (CRI), it is crucial to understand how the field is evolving and if and how researchers are adhering to current best practices. We present a review of five years (2020-2024) of CRI research, under the lens of reproducibility. We analysed a total of 195 papers for transparency in reporting. We found deficiencies in reporting demographics (e.g., age of participants), study design and implementation (e.g. length of interactions), and open science practices (e.g., maintaining an active study repository). From our analysis, we identify a set of key challenges faced by CRI researchers and provide a checklist to systematically report CRI studies to help and guide research to improve reproducibility in CRI.