scholarly journals ‘It’s Almost like Talking to a Person’

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggi Savin-Baden ◽  
Gemma Tombs ◽  
David Burden ◽  
Clare Wood
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
Pedagogical Agents ◽  
Pedagogical Agent ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Emotional Connection ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Lifestyle Choices

This paper presents findings of a pilot study which used pedagogical agents to examine disclosure in educational settings. The study used responsive evaluation to explore how use of pedagogical agents might affect students’ truthfulness and disclosure by asking them to respond to a lifestyle choices survey delivered by a web-based pedagogical agent. Findings indicate that emotional connection with pedagogical agents was intrinsic to the user’s sense of trust and therefore likely to affect levels of truthfulness and engagement. The implications of this study are that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are all vital components in using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning.

scholarly journals Students' Experiences of Emotional Connection with Pedagogical Agents

2015 ◽  
pp. 1380-1391
Author(s):  
Maggi Savin-Baden ◽  
Gemma Tombs ◽  
Roy Bhakta ◽  
David Burden
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Student Interaction ◽  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
Pedagogical Agents ◽  
Pedagogical Agent ◽  
Emotional Connection ◽  
Responsive Evaluation ◽  
Aesthetic Appearance ◽  
Technical Literacy ◽  
Research Studies

Online chatbots (also known as pedagogical agents or virtual assistants) are becoming embedded into the fabric of technology, both in educational and commercial settings. Yet understanding of these technologies is inchoate and often untheorised, influenced by individuals' willingness to trust technologies, aesthetic appearance of the chatbot and technical literacy, among other factors. This paper draws upon data from two research studies that evaluated students' experiences of using pedagogical agents in education using responsive evaluation. The findings suggest that emotional connections with pedagogical agents were intrinsic to the user's sense of trust and therefore likely to affect levels of truthfulness and engagement. They also indicate that the topic of the pedagogical agent-student interaction is key to the student's experience. The implications of these studies are that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are all vital components in using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning.

Can Seventh Graders Learn Fractions from a Web-Based Pedagogical Agent? Using Comparison Groups Thre Times Over Several Weeks

2011 ◽  
pp. 334-348
Author(s):  
Shannon Adams ◽  
Bruce L. Mann ◽  
Henry Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Pedagogical Agents ◽  
Pedagogical Agent ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Educational Multimedia ◽  
Treatment Conditions ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Comparison Groups ◽  
Practice Questions

In this study, a Web-based pedagogical agent presented 7th grade students (n = 91) with examples and practice questions involving the multiplication and division of fractions. Pedagogical agents are animated, talking characters that can be made to introduce, guide or otherwise enhance educational Web sites. It was expected that school-age students using moving and talking pedagogical agents would retain more and find more creative solutions to problems than students in the other treatment conditions. A repeated measures-by-occasion research design was used to determine if the movement and or talking by the agent helped them learn to multiply and divide fractions. Results of the analyses showed that students learned from the pre-test to immediate post-test. But there were no effects for either modality (speech vs. text) or agent animation (movement vs. no movement). Consistent with a previous study with 7th grade students using educational multimedia (Mann, Newhouse, Pagram, Campbell, & Schulz, 2002) positive findings from using speech in educational multimedia may only be generalizable to adults and older adolescents. Implications are discussed regarding the instructional design of educational Web sites.

The Penn State Heart Assistant: A pilot study of a web-based intervention to improve self-care of heart failure patients

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Lloyd ◽  
Harleah Buck ◽  
Andrew Foy ◽  
Sara Black ◽  
Antony Pinter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heart Failure ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Heart Failure Patients ◽  
Penn State

Estimating visual difference between reproduction gamuts: moving our pilot study from the lab to online delivery

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (29) ◽  
pp. 317-322
Author(s):  
Gregory High ◽  
Peter Nussbaum ◽  
Phil Green
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Magnitude Estimation ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Online Delivery ◽  
Visual Difference

Images reproduced for different output devices are known to be limited in the range of colours that can be reproduced. It is accepted that reproductions made with different print processes, and on different substrates, will not match, although the overall reproduction appearance can be optimized using an output rendering. However, the question remains: how different are they visually? This paper reports on a pilot study that tests whether visual difference can be reduced to a single dimensional scale using magnitude estimation. Subject to recent Covid restrictions, the experiment was moved from the lab to an online delivery. We compare the two methods of delivery: in-person under controlled viewing conditions, and online via a web-based interface where viewing conditions are unknown.

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