Chatbots for learning: A review of educational chatbots for the Facebook Messenger

With the exponential growth in the mobile device market over the last decade, chatbots are becoming an increasingly popular option to interact with users, and their popularity and adoption are rapidly spreading. These mobile devices change the way we communicate and allow ever-present learning in various environments. This study examined educational chatbots for Facebook Messenger to support learning. The independent web directory was screened to assess chatbots for this study resulting in the identification of 89 unique chatbots. Each chatbot was classified by language, subject matter and developer's platform. Finally, we evaluated 47 educational chatbots using the Facebook Messenger platform based on the analytic hierarchy process against the quality attributes of teaching, humanity, affect, and accessibility. We found that educational chatbots on the Facebook Messenger platform vary from the basic level of sending personalized messages to recommending learning content. Results show that chatbots which are part of the instant messaging application are still in its early stages to become artificial intelligence teaching assistants. The findings provide tips for teachers to integrate chatbots into classroom practice and advice what types of chatbots they can try out.Web of Science151art. no. 10386

Examining the Effects of a Virtual Character on Learning and Engagement in Serious Games

Virtual characters have been employed for many purposes including interacting with players of serious games, with a purpose to increase engagement. These characters are often embodied conversational agents playing diverse roles, such as demonstrators, guides, teachers or interviewers. Recently, much research has been conducted into properties that affect the realism and plausibility of virtual characters, but it is less clear whether the inclusion of interactive agents in serious applications can enhance a user’s engagement with the application, or indeed increase efficacy. In a first step towards answering these questions, we conducted a study where a Virtual Learning Environment was used to examine the effect of employing a virtual character to deliver a lesso

Comparing Photorealistic and Animated Embodied Conversational Agents in Serious Games: An Empirical Study on User Experience

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are paradigms of conversational user interfaces in the form of embodied characters. While ECAs offer various manipulable features, this paper focuses on a study conducted to explore two distinct levels of presentation realism. The two agent versions are photorealistic and animated. The study aims to provide insights and design suggestions for speech-enabled ECAs within serious game environments. A within-subjects, two-by-two factorial design was employed for this research with a cohort of 36 participants balanced for gender. The results showed that both the photorealistic and the animated versions were perceived as highly usable, with overall mean scores of 5.76 and 5.71, respectively. However, 69.4 per cent of the participants stated they preferred the photorealistic version, 25 per cent stated they preferred the animated version and 5.6 per cent had no stated preference. The photorealistic agents were perceived as more realistic and human-like, while the animated characters made the task feel more like a game. Even though the agents' realism had no significant effect on usability, it positively influenced participants' perceptions of the agent. This research aims to lay the groundwork for future studies on ECA realism's impact in serious games across diverse contexts.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, preprint to be published in HCI INTERNATIONAL 2023 25TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION proceeding

The Effectiveness of an Internet-Based Career Development Program: The Impact of Matching Animated Agent Ethnic Appearance

abstract: The current study is a follow up to a previous evaluation of Believe It!, an internet-based career development program for adolescent girls. This study attempted to extend the program's effectiveness by manipulating animated agent appearance based on literature suggesting that agent appearance has implications for human-computer program interface. Participants included 52 Latinas (ages 11 to 14) randomly assigned to view one of two versions of the revised career program. Each version contained identical content but included animated agents designed to represent different ethnicities. Pre and post-treatment scores for three career belief measures and an occupational stereotype measure were analyzed using a MANCOVA. The results were not significant and further analyses revealed that the results were confounded by complications with the perceived ethnicity of the animated agents. Despite a lack of significance the results provide enriching information about Latina adolescent perception of ethnicity.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Counseling Psychology 201

A bizarre virtual trainer outperforms a human trainer in foreign language word learning

In this study, the effects that a human trainer and a pedagogical virtual agent have on the memory for words in a foreign language (L2) were investigated. In a recent study on L2 word learning, Bergmann and Macedonia (2013) cued participants to memorize novel words both audiovisually and by performing additional gestures. The gestures were performed by both a human and a virtual trainer. In some of the tests, the virtual agent had a greater positive influence on memory performance than the human trainer. In order to determine why the agent was a better trainer than the human, 18 naive subjects were invited to rate the gestures performed by both trainers. Furthermore, participants were asked to evaluate their perception of the human and the agent. It was hypothesized that the gestures performed by the agent would be more peculiar than those by the human and possibly attract greater attention. It was also hypothesized that the agent’s personality might be more appealing than that of the human. The results showed that the agent’s gestures were perceived as less natural than those of the human. This might have triggered greater attention and/ or more emotional involvement of the participants. The perception of both trainers as “personalities” did not differ, with the exception of a few traits for which the human trainer was considered to be better. Altogether, because of the peculiar gestures it made and because of its looks, the agent may have been perceived as bizarre. Therefore, he might have induced the bizarreness effect in the memory for words

Gender stereotypes in virtual agents

Visual, behavioural and verbal cues for gender are often used in designing virtual agents to take advantage of their cultural and stereotypical effects on the users. However, recent studies point towards a more gender-balanced view of stereotypical traits and roles in our society. This thesis is intended as an effort towards a progressive and inclusive approach for gender representations in virtual agents. The contributions are two-fold. First, in an iterative design process, representative male, female and androgynous embodied AI agents were created with few differences in their visual attributes. Second, these agents were then used to evaluate the stereotypical assumptions of gendered traits and roles in AI virtual agents. The results showed that, indeed, gender stereotypes are not as effective as previously assumed, and androgynous agents could represent a middle-ground between gendered stereotypes. The thesis findings are presented in the hope to foster discussions in virtual agent research and the frequent stereotypical use of gender representations

Investigating the impact of pedagogical agent gender matching and learner choice on learning outcomes and perceptions

abstract: The similarity attraction hypothesis posits that humans are drawn toward others who behave and appear similar to themselves. Two experiments examined this hypothesis with middle-school students learning electrical circuit analysis in a computer-based environment with an Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA). Experiment 1 was designed to determine whether matching the gender of the APA to the student has a positive impact on learning outcomes or student perceptions. One hundred ninety-seven middle-school students learned with the computer-based environment using an APA that matched their gender or one which was opposite in gender. Female students reported higher program ratings when the APA matched their gender. Male students, on the other hand, reported higher program ratings than females when the APA did not match their gender. Experiment 2 systematically tested the impact of providing learners the choice among four APAs on learning outcomes and student perceptions. Three hundred thirty-four middle-school students received either a pre-assigned random APA or were free to choose from four APA options: young male agent, older male agent, young female agent, or older female agent. Learners had higher far transfer scores when provided a choice of animated agent, but student perceptions were not impacted by having the ability to make this choice. We suggest that offering students learner control positively impacts student motivation and learning by increasing student perceptions of autonomy, responsibility for the success of the instructional materials, and global satisfaction with the design of materials.NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in COMPUTERS & EDUCATION. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in COMPUTERS & EDUCATION Volume 67, September 2013, Pages 36–50 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.02.00

Performance, perception, and choice of animated pedagogical agent

This study was designed to investigate learning with animated pedagogical agents (APAs) in the chemistry domain. Of interest was whether learners achieved more when paired with an APA, the learner\u27s perception of the APA, and whether the ability to choose an APA affected learner performance and perception; An APA (Animated Pedagogical Agent) is a computerized character that is designed to facilitate learning. The ability of the student to choose which APA to study with was integral to this study, so that the effects of student choice on performance and perception of the APA could be investigated. Further, the student\u27s view of the APA in general was analyzed from open-ended comments submitted by the students; The APAs were carefully constructed according to cognitive load theory (CLT), the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) and social agency theory. Presentation of the APA, worked examples and self-explanation prompts for weekly chemistry quizzes were built in accordance with these theories. What is surprising is that the students did not react to the APAs as expected; The students should have performed better when studying with an APA, and should have enjoyed studying with their APA. However, the results of this study did not reveal this; The interesting results of this study do not lie with differences sought between the groups. The condition, whether no APA, assigned APA or self-selected APA, did not seem to make a significant difference in this study. What made a difference was the APA itself, whether selected or assigned, and the comments of the students; One possible interpretation may be that there is an initial novelty effect when students study with an APA, and that this benefit is lost over time such as in this multiple measures study. Further, the APA may be viewed as a kind of decoration, since the appearance of the APA led to significant differences in perception of the APA. Finally, the ability to customize the APA may be linked to student perception of the APA