Turner, Jessica DawnVanderschantz, NicholasBowen, JudyKönig, Jemma LynetteCarino, Hannah2026-05-112026-05-112026-03-16Turner, J., Vanderschantz, N., Bowen, J., Konig, J., & Carino, H. (2026). Empowering education: Student perceptions and attitudes to the role of social robots in learning contexts. HRI Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 913-917. https://doi.org/10.1145/3776734.3794527https://hdl.handle.net/10289/18271Successful integration of social robots in education relies on the acceptance of robots in learning contexts by students. Using a participatory design workshop, students interacted with a KettyBot and ideated potential roles for robots in the classroom. This was followed by a questionnaire and the Godspeed Questionnaire Series (GQS) to understand student perceptions and attitudes towards social robots in education environments. Learners described potential use cases and our results demonstrate students envision robots as assistants rather than teachers, emphasising the importance of human connection in learning.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/human-robot interactionsocial robotseducationparticipatory designstudent perceptionsConference Contribution10.1145/3776734.37945273901 Curriculum and Pedagogy39 Education3904 Specialist Studies In Education46 Information and Computing Sciences4608 Human-Centred Computing4 Quality Education