Educational potentials in visually androgynous pedagogical agents
Författare
Redaktör
- Kalina Yacef
- Chad Lane
Summary, in English
In the reported study, we explored student’s attitudes to a visually
androgynous agent in comparison to a male and a female agent in a Teachable
Agent (TA) based math game. Each student interacted with two agents, playing
the game and chatting with them, and were asked which of the two they preferred
(i) as their tutee and (ii) as their conversational partner, and why. Results
were that overall the androgynous agent was preferred over both the female and
male agents. Importantly a visually androgynous agent does not embody categorical
gender attributes and, thus, does not reinforce or reproduce gender stereotypes.
At the same time it is not without gender but rather introduces freedom
for students to ascribe gender. Thus, androgyny is potentially a way to
have femaleness and maleness represented, with corresponding educational
benefits such as role modelling and identification, without risking negative reinforcement
of gender stereotypes.
androgynous agent in comparison to a male and a female agent in a Teachable
Agent (TA) based math game. Each student interacted with two agents, playing
the game and chatting with them, and were asked which of the two they preferred
(i) as their tutee and (ii) as their conversational partner, and why. Results
were that overall the androgynous agent was preferred over both the female and
male agents. Importantly a visually androgynous agent does not embody categorical
gender attributes and, thus, does not reinforce or reproduce gender stereotypes.
At the same time it is not without gender but rather introduces freedom
for students to ascribe gender. Thus, androgyny is potentially a way to
have femaleness and maleness represented, with corresponding educational
benefits such as role modelling and identification, without risking negative reinforcement
of gender stereotypes.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2013
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
599-602
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2013), LNCS
Volym
vol. 7926
Dokumenttyp
Konferensbidrag
Förlag
Springer
Ämne
- Learning
Nyckelord
- Educational game
- educational software
- conversational pedagogical agent
- teachable agent
- androgyny
- visual appearance
Conference name
16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, 2013
Conference date
2013-08-09 - 2013-08-13
Conference place
Memphis, United States
Status
Published
Projekt
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
Forskningsgrupp
- Lund University Cognitive Science (LUCS)