Research Participant Selection Bias in the Workshop Using Socially Assistive Robots for Older Adults and Its Effect on Population Representativeness

Toshiharu Igarashi (), Ikuko Sugawara, Takenobu Inoue and Misato Nihei
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Toshiharu Igarashi: Department of Human and Engineered Environmental Studies, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwanoha 5-1-5, Chiba 277-8563, Japan
Ikuko Sugawara: Faculty of Service Management, Bunri University of Hospitality, 311-1, Kashiwabara-shinden, Sainatama 350-1336, Japan
Takenobu Inoue: Research Institute of National Rehabilitation, Center for the Persons with Disabilities, 1, Namiki 4-chome, Saitama 359-8555, Japan
Misato Nihei: Institute of Gerontology, The University of Tokyo, 3-1, Hongo 7-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 10, 1-10

Abstract: Every research participant has their own personality characteristics. For example, older adults assisted by socially assistive robots (SAR) may have their own unique characteristics and may not be representative of the general population of older adults. In this research, we compared the average personality characteristics of participants in a workshop on robotics recruited directly through posting with those of older Japanese adults to examine participant selection bias and group representativeness for future study of SARs. After a one-week recruitment period, the workshop was attended by 20 older participants (nine males and 11 females) aged between 62 and 86 years. Extroversion among workshop participants was 4.38, 0.40 higher than the average for older adults in Japan. The workshop participants’ openness was 4.55, 1.09 higher than the average for the Japanese elderly. Thus, the results indicate a slight selection bias in the personal characteristics of the participants depending on the recruitment method when compared to the Japan national average for older adults. In addition, only one of 20 participants was below the cutoff on the LSNS-6 score and considered to have a tendency toward social isolation. The development and introduction of socially assistive robots is often being considered to support people in social isolation in their daily lives; however, the results of this study showed that it is difficult to recruit people who tend to be socially isolated when gathering research participants by methods such as posting. Therefore, the effectiveness of the method of recruiting participants should be carefully verified in research regarding socially assistive robots.

Keywords: socially assistive robots; selection bias; population representativeness; human-robot interaction; LSNS-6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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