Theses at iTec
iTec supervises theses on various scientific topics of the chair. Students of the bachelor or master program in Psychology, the bachelor program Social Sciences as well as the master program Computational Social Systems can write a thesis with Professor Rosenthal-von der Pütten as first examiner. For students from other subjects, each case has to be considered individually.
Theses can generally be written in German or English. You can find out which regulation applies to you in your respective examination regulations.
If theses in current projects are available, you can find topics in the table below. In addition to these topics or if no topics are available, you can also suggest your own topics if they are within the research focus of iTec. Your idea should include an empirical study; theoretical approaches are only possible in exceptional cases. Specific information about writing a thesis can be found in these slides.
Process for topics proposed by iTec:
(1) As a first step, you should check whether you meet all study specific requirements to start your thesis. If this is the case, you should contact us and state your interest in writing your thesis at iTec. If you are interested in a topic proposed by us, please indicate the desired topic, your course of study and the period of time in which you would like to write your thesis.
(2) In the next step, you will be put in contact with a potential supervisor. After a first meeting, you will have to hand in a full proposal for your thesis. Your supervisor will provide you with more detailed information on that.
(3) As soon as your proposal is approved by your supervisor, you can register your thesis. For that, you will fill in the registration form* together with your supervisor and send it back to the Central Examination Board.
(4) Now your thesis is registered, and you have 6 month (for a Master Thesis) to complete it.
Process for topics proposed by yourself:
(1) As a first step, you should check whether you meet all your study specific requirements to start your thesis. If this is the case, you should contact us and state your interest in writing your thesis at iTec. If you would like to propose your own topic, please include a brief description of your idea and explain how it relates to our research focus so that we can assess whether or not it fits our scope (just a few sentences).
(2) If your topic fits the scope of iTec, you will be put in contact with a potential supervisor. To get a better idea of your project, you will have to prepare a 2-page proposal outlining:
- the main research question
- the theoretical basis of your research question
- how you aim to answer/ explore the research question (experimental approach/ study idea)
In a first meeting, you will refine your idea together with your supervisor. After that, you will have to prepare a full proposal for your thesis. Your supervisor will provide you with more detailed information on that.
(3) As soon as your proposal is approved by your supervisor, you can register your thesis. For that, you will fill in the registration form* together with your supervisor and send it back to the Central Examination Board.
(4) Now your thesis is registered, and you have 6 months (for a Master Thesis) to complete it.
*To register your thesis, you have to contact the Central Examination Board. The Central Examination Board will then check whether you meet the requirements, for example the necessary CP, in order to be able to register the thesis, and then hands you a registration form. You can already do this while writing your proposal or even before that.
Proposed Thesis Topics
| Topic of the thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
|
MoBi (the MonsterBin) at the museum: MoBi the robot helps children understand the principles of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle and separate waste correctly. During the 150th anniversary exhibition at Centre Charlemagne, we invited children in small groups to interact with MoBi. Group interviews were conducted after the group interaction. BA1: Annotation and analysis of group interaction with MoBi. Raw data available. |
Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten |
|
Online Study - Ingroup Identification & Entitativity in Human-Robot Groups: Will we work together with robotic and human colleagues in the future? In online studies we will investigate how much people perceive mixed-agent teams (robots and humans) as teams, whether they can imagine having robotic colleagues and what impact this may have on team dynamics. BA1: Focus on identification with mixed-agent teams. |
Anna M. H. Abrams |
|
Online Study- Do Gaze Cues from Delivery Robots Help with Sidewalk Navigation? When people meet each other on the sidewalk, they use gaze cues to signal how they will avoid the other person. An online study will test the effectiveness of different GazeCues for delivery robots and their influence on the acceptance of the system. BA1: experimental online study on the influence of GazeCues on avoidance behavior. |
Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten |
|
Field Study- Do Gaze Cues from Delivery Robots Help with Sidewalk Navigation? When people meet each other on the sidewalk, they use GazeCues to signal how they will avoid the other person. A field study will test the effectiveness of different GazeCues for delivery robots and their influence on the acceptance of the system. BA1: explorative field study on the influence of GazeCues on avoidance behavior; focus on the evaluation of short questionnaires on acceptance. |
Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten |
Completed Thesis
| Topic of the Thesis | Supervisor |
|---|---|
| The Influence of a Robot’s Reaction to Abuse on the Human’s Affect and Empathy for the Robot | Anna M. H. Abrams |
| Interview Study on Robots in Healthcare | Anna M. H. Abrams |
| Are You Talking About Me? An Empirical Study on the Effects of Transparency in Robot-Robot Communication on Humans’ Perceptions of Trust and Social Attributes of Robots | Nikolai Bock |
| Robot Abuse and Robot Bullying – Where Does One Begin and the Other End? | Anna M. H. Abrams |