Qualitative and Mixed-Methods Evaluation for HRI
Leimin Tian, Tina L. Y. Wu, Nicole Robinson, Pamela Carreno‐Medrano, Wesley P. Chan, Maram Sakr, Elahe Abdi, Elizabeth A. Croft, Dana Kulić · 2025
Qualitative methods can address some of the critiques of quantitative methods to better understand people&s;s opinions on the most salient features and functionalities that robots should have for more suitable and inclusive HRI. Qualitative methods further allow new hypotheses, design concepts, and insights to be generated directly from people, and allows researchers to capture free-flowing thoughts or concerns about the proposed robot use case. Mixed methods combine both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. By using mixed methods when collecting and analysing data, researchers may better uncover and understand the workings of complex systems drawing on the results of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. This chapter offers an overview of emerging qualitative experiment methods useful for the HRI context and presents how mixed methods HRI study can be designed.