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Challenging gender stereotypes using virtual pedagogical characters

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

The paper explores motivational and cognitive effects of more neutral or androgynous-looking characters versus more feminine-looking female and masculine-looking male characters. A user study involving 158 students, aged 17-19, encountering four virtual characters, visually manipulated to represent gender stereotypicality versus androgyny, is presented. On the one hand we explored students’ attitudes towards the different characters as seen in how they rank them as preferred presenters and articulate their arguments about the characters. On the other hand we looked for patterns as to which character(s) influence female and male students most positively with respect to their attitude towards a university level computer engineering program. Results from the study are presented and discussed. We conclude with pointing towards future research within the area.

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Publication/Series

[Host publication title missing]

Document type

Conference paper

Publisher

GLIT - Research Network

Topic

  • Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)
  • Learning

Keywords

  • masculinity
  • androgynities
  • educational choice
  • computer engineering
  • virtual characters
  • gender
  • femininity
  • visual design
  • SoTL

Conference name

Symposium on Gender, Learning and IT, organized by GLIT - Research Network, 2007

Conference date

2007-08-23 - 2007-08-25

Conference place

Helsingborg, Sweden

Status

Published