At the Margins of the State

How is Pentecostalism changing the notions and experiences of citizenship at the margins of the state? Addressing this question, the paper argues that in the context of south Rajasthan, the Pentecostal church has played a vital role in combining the values of both pedagogical and governmental paradigms of citizenship not just to fill in the absence of the state but also to create an alternative model of citizenship that goes beyond the mere political rights. This alternative model of ‘Christian citizenship’ has effectively combined development with Pentecostal moral values. Furthermore, the Pentecostal church, by acting as a pedagogical agent, by organising active social ministries, and by developing ethical subjectivities among the Bhils, has engendered new notions of agency, autonomy and citizenship at the margins of the state.

Developing an Analysis Framework for Studies on Pedagogical Agent in an e-Learning Environment

Pedagogical agents (PAs) are a crucial aspect of the e-learning environment. A PA is defined as a virtual character presented on an interface, and they are designed to promote student learning. PAs have been widely discussed in academic papers. However, an appropriate analysis framework has not been proposed because of the diversity and complexity of PAs. Therefore, we reviewed the literature and proposed a list of related clues, including environmental, learner, role, appearance, and social clues. We used this framework to analyse the learning effectiveness of PAs in specific areas. The keyword ‘pedagogical agent’ was used to search for related papers from 2000 to 2019. A total of 136 related papers were obtained. A meta-analysis was performed using a random effects model (Hedges’ g was used to measure the effect size). The effect size of the learning effectiveness of PA was small to medium (g = 0.423). The results of subgroup analysis (Hedges’s g) revealed that subjects, grades, additional support, appearance style, and facial expression changes had a different moderating effect on the effect of PA on learning effectiveness. We discussed the moderating effect of related clues and suggested future research directions.

Voice’s Effect on Student Effort Ratings and Recall Performance While Under Cognitive Stress

Computer-generated speech is becoming more commonplace in classrooms, so it is important to examine the impact of computer voice on students’ cognition in a variety of learning situations. The current study investigated the effects of voice in a cognitively stressful, audio-only learning situation. In this experiment, 122 college students were recruited to listen to an audio lecture and respond to test questions. Our findings indicated that participants rated the classic voice engine as demanding the most effort and the human voice as demanding the least effort. Students also had the best recall performance in the human voice condition and the worst recall performance in the classic voice condition. Our results indicated that when learners are placed under cognitive stress, the human voice is the superior pedagogical agent. These results contribute to a growing body of research examining modern computer voice as a pedagogical agent.