Educational potentials in visually androgynous pedagogical agents
Author
Editor
- 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.
Department/s
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Pages
599-602
Publication/Series
Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2013), LNCS
Volume
vol. 7926
Document type
Conference paper
Publisher
Springer
Topic
- Learning
Keywords
- 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
Project
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
Research group
- Lund University Cognitive Science (LUCS)