Simulating Interactive Learning Scenarios with Intelligent Pedagogical Agents in a Virtual World through BDI-Based Agents

Intelligent Pedagogical Agents (IPAs) are designed for pedagogical purposes to support learning in 3D virtual learning environments. Several benefits of IPAs have been found adding to support learning effectiveness. Pedagogical agents can be thought of as a central point of interaction between the learner and the learning environment. And hence, the intelligent behavior and functional richness of pedagogical agents have the potential to reward back into increased engagement and learning effectiveness. However, the realization of those agents remains to be a challenge based on intelligent agents in virtual worlds. This paper reports the challenging reasons and most importantly an approach for simplification. A simulation based on BDI agents is introduced opening the road for several extensions and experimentation before implementation of IPAs in a virtual world can take place. The simulation provides a proof-of concept based on three intelligent agents to represent an IPA, a learner, and learning object implemented in JACK and Jadex intelligent agent platforms. To that end, the paper exhibits the difficulties, resolutions, and decisions made when designing and implementing the learning scenario in both domains of the virtual world and the agent-based simulation while comparing the two agent platforms

Evaluation Study and Results of Intelligent Pedagogical Agent-led Learning Scenarios in a Virtual World

The use of intelligent pedagogical agents (IPAs) has shown to provide positive learning results and new learning possibilities. The IPA has specific importance in immersive learning environments to enable 24/7 availability, offer a learning companion opportunity, and increase learner engagement. In that regard, a proof of concept prototype implementation of an intelligent pedagogical agent (IPA) in the Open Wonderland virtual world environment was created. This paper reports a qualitative evaluation study and experiment performed by a team of six experts in relevant areas of expertise. Those areas include cognitive science, computer science, e-education, and virtual worlds. The experiment studied key prototype components in relation to four learning scenarios with distributed control between the learner avatar and the pedagogical agent to answer questions relevant to their effect on learning attributes such as motivation, engagement, and the learning experience. Given the qualitative nature of the experiment, the paper also analyzes and reports results relevant to expert input of how the prototype can better contribute to future pedagogical agent realizations and the impact on learning enhancement