Motivating Learners by Nurturing Animal Companions: My-Pet and Our-Pet

Zhi Hong Chen, Yi Chan Deng, Chih Yueh Chou, Tak Wai Chan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper reports a pilot study of how to utilize simulated animal companions to encourage students to pay more effort in their study in the classroom environment. A class of students is divided into several teams. Every student keeps her own individual animal companion, called My-Pet, which keeps a simple performance record of its master for self-reflection. Also, every team has a team animal companion, called Our-Pet, kept by all teammates. Our-Pet has a collective performance record formed by all team members' performance records. The design of Our-Pet intends to help a team set a team goal through a competitive game among Our-Pets, and promotes positive and helpful interactions among teammates. A preliminary experiment is conducted in a fifth-grade class with 31 students in an elementary school, and the experimental results show that there are both cognitive and affective gains.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationArtificial Intelligence in Education
Subtitle of host publicationSupporting Learning through Intelligent and Socially Informed Technology
EditorsChee-Kit Looi, Gord McCalla, Bert Bredeweg, Joost Breuker
PublisherIOS Press BV
Pages136-143
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)1586035304, 9781586035303
Publication statusPublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes
Event12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2005 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: 2005 Jul 182005 Jul 22

Publication series

NameFrontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications
Volume125
ISSN (Print)0922-6389
ISSN (Electronic)1879-8314

Conference

Conference12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2005
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityAmsterdam
Period2005/07/182005/07/22

Keywords

  • learning companion
  • motivation
  • open student model

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence

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