Continuous Focus Groups: A Longitudinal Method for Clinical HRI in Autism Care

arXiv cs.RO / 4/21/2026

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Key Points

The paper argues that qualitative HRI research often uses one-off studies that fail to capture how stakeholder perspectives change over time, especially in clinical settings.
It introduces “continuous focus groups,” a longitudinal co-agential method meant to maintain sustained dialogue with assistive care professionals working with children with ASD.
Three focus groups were run across successive phases of a robot-assisted therapeutic protocol, allowing participants to revisit and refine earlier feedback as the intervention progressed.
The study finds that continuity builds trust, helps incorporate tacit clinical expertise into design decisions, and acts as an ethical safeguard by letting participants adjust involvement and raise new concerns.
The authors claim the method is practical and rigorous by connecting the iterative needs of therapy stakeholders with the research/design iteration of developers, and it can be adapted to other sensitive HRI domains with limited direct user participation.

Abstract

Qualitative methods are important to use alongside quantitative methods to improve Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), yet they are often applied in static or one-off formats that cannot capture how stakeholder perspectives evolve over time. This limitation is especially evident in clinical contexts, where families and patients face heavy burdens and cannot easily participate in repeated research encounters. To address this gap, we introduce continuous focus groups, a longitudinal and co-agential method designed to sustain dialogue with assistive care professionals working with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Three focus groups were organized across successive phases of a robot-assisted therapeutic protocol, enabling participants to revisit and refine earlier views as the intervention progressed. Results show that continuity fostered trust, supported the integration of tacit clinical expertise into design decisions, and functioned as an ethical safeguard by allowing participants to renegotiate involvement and surface new concerns. By bridging the therapeutic iteration of families, children, and clinicians with the research-design iteration of researchers and developers, continuous focus groups provide a methodological contribution that is both feasible in practice and rigorous in design. Beyond autism care, this approach offers a transferable framework for advancing qualitative research in HRI, particularly in sensitive domains where direct user participation is limited and continuity is essential.