24 August 2026 (afternoon) | 35th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2026) | Kitakyushu International Conference Center, Kitakyushu, Japan
Tutorial Overview
Human-robot interaction studies often involve socio-technical systems in which human practices and robotic or technology arrangements are tightly coupled. However, common qualitative workflows can under-specify how to analyse technical arrangements alongside social practice, and how to report interpretive decisions rigorously.
This half-day, in-person tutorial introduces Socio-Technical Grounded Theory (STGT) as a practical analytic approach for HRI and robotics researchers. Building on the STGT tutorial delivered at HRI 2025, this RO-MAN 2026 edition adapts and streamlines the hands-on activities for a broader robotics audience, with a focus on analysing socio-technical HRI phenomena (people, robots, tools, environments, and infrastructures) and reporting analytic decisions transparently.
What You Will Learn
Participants will learn how to:
- Apply STGT-DA (STGT for Data Analysis) to code socio-technical data
- Distinguish STGT-DA from full STGT theory generation and choose an appropriate scope for their project
- Produce memo trails that make assumptions, domain knowledge, and positionality explicit
- Translate codes into analytic claims that remain accountable to both social practice and technical configuration
Who Should Attend
This tutorial is designed for a range of experience levels and disciplinary backgrounds. It is intended for HRI, robotics, and adjacent researchers and practitioners, including:
- Early-career researchers seeking practical guidance for rigorous qualitative analysis
- Experienced qualitative researchers working with robotic systems and complex settings
- Quantitative researchers interested in incorporating user studies or qualitative methods into their work
Expected number of attendees: 15-30 (subject to room capacity and conference scheduling).
Tutorial Schedule
| Time | Session |
| 14:00 – 14:10 | Welcome and Miro Check-in: Where are you joining from, what data do you work with, and what do you hope to get out of the tutorial? |
| 14:10 – 14:20 | Framing: Why socio-technical analysis matters for HRI, and what STGT helps us see |
| 14:20 – 14:35 | STGT-DA Essentials: Core analytic moves, coding, memoing, comparison, and practical examples |
| 14:35 – 15:35 | Hands-on Cycle 1: Individual coding and memoing, followed by small-group comparison |
| 15:35 – 16:00 | Group Reflection: Comparing codes, analytic uncertainties, and emerging socio-technical patterns |
| 16:00 – 16:20 | Coffee Break |
| 16:20 – 16:30 | From STGT-DA to Full STGT: How descriptive analysis can support category development, relationships, mechanisms, and theory-building |
| 16:30 – 17:25 | Hands-on Cycle 2: Codes-to-categories, identifying socio-technical relationships and mechanisms |
| 17:25 – 17:55 | Reporting Clinic: Writing up STGT-informed analysis for robotics venues |
| 17:55 – 18:05 | Wrap-up: Takeaways, next steps, and optional follow-up community channel |
| 18:05 – 18:20 | Buffer |
Topics Covered
- Socio-technical phenomena in HRI: configurations, constraints, and coordination
- STGT overview and core analytic moves: open coding, constant comparison, memoing
- STGT-DA vs full STGT: aims, claims, and reporting implications
- Coding technical arrangements alongside social practice (and avoiding technology as backdrop)
- Memo trails, reflexivity, and positionality in socio-technical interpretation
- From codes to categories and mechanisms: making analytic claims transparent
- Reporting STGT-informed analysis in robotics venues: what to include and how to justify scope
Hands-on Activities
Participation is structured around hands-on analysis and peer comparison. Attendees will:
- Individually code a short organiser-provided excerpt (fieldnotes, interview, or video transcript)
- Compare codes and memos in small groups to surface interpretive differences
- Collaboratively draft a mini reporting paragraph that communicates analytic decisions and socio-technical sensitivity
Participants may optionally bring a short anonymised excerpt (10-15 lines) for small-group discussion. See the Important Dates section below for the submission deadline.
Important Dates
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 15 April 2026 | Tutorial webpage live |
| Late April 2026 | Call for participation and promotion begins |
| 31 July 2026 | Optional participant excerpt submission deadline (10-15 anonymised lines) |
| 7 August 2026 | Participant confirmation / final attendee list (if capped) |
| 10 August 2026 | Pre-reading and materials released to registered attendees |
| 17 August 2026 | Final tutorial run sheet and slide deck locked |
| 24 August 2026 | Tutorial delivered (exact start time to be confirmed) |
Tutorial Organisers
Jasper Vermeulen – Main Organiser and In-Person Facilitator PhD Candidate, Australian Cobotics Centre, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia j.vermeulen@qut.edu.au
Jasper Vermeulen is a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology and the Australian Cobotics Centre, and will serve as the in-person facilitator for this tutorial. His research examines human-robot collaboration in real-world settings using socio-technical qualitative methods, including STGT-informed coding and memoing for complex, multi-actor datasets (interviews, fieldnotes, and video-based materials). He has been at the forefront of applying STGT in HRI research and was the first to adapt STGT procedures for systematic analysis of video-based materials. He supports the broader uptake of STGT across research disciplines, including engineering, health, social sciences, humanities, and more, through hands-on tutorials and workshops. His ethnographic study of human-robot collaboration in robotic surgery, analysed using Socio-Technical Grounded Theory, received an Honourable Mention at CHI 2026.
Relevant Study Materials
Visiting some of the following materials ahead of the tutorial will enable an improved experience. These are also useful as follow-up resources after the tutorial.
- Hoda, R. (2024). Qualitative research with socio-technical grounded theory. Springer. Amazon | Springer Link
- Hoda, R. (2022). Socio-technical grounded theory for software engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 48(10), 3808-3832. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2021.3106280 | View article
- Vermeulen, J., Caldwell, G.A., Teixeira, M.B.F., Burden, A.G., and Guertler, M. (2026). The Invisible Work of Robotic Surgery: How Specialists Support, Shoulder, and Sustain Human-Robot Collaboration. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’26), June 13–17, 2026, Singapore, Singapore. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3800645.3812924
- Vermeulen, J., Caldwell, G., Belek Fialho Teixeira, M., Burden, A., Dwyer, J., & Guertler, M. (2026). Human-centred strategies for improving efficiency in Makoplasty surgeries. Behaviour & Information Technology, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929x.2026.2614051 | View article (First application of STGT for video-based data analysis)
- Vermeulen, J. T., Dwyer, J. L., Burden, A. G., Caldwell, G., Teixeira, M., Guertler, M., & Crawford, R. (2026). The choreography of care: An ethnographic study of human-robot collaboration in Makoplasty surgeries. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’26). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791382 | View article (Honourable Mention)
- Slides from the STGT Tutorial at HRI 2025: rashina.com/hritutorial
- Videos of previous tutorials and technical briefings: rashina.com/stgt
About the Conference
This tutorial is part of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2026), held 24-28 August 2026 at the Kitakyushu International Conference Center, Kitakyushu, Japan.
Rashina Hoda 