TY - JOUR
T1 - We care about you
T2 - Incorporating pet characteristics with educational agents through reciprocal caring approach
AU - Chen, Zhi Hong
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the National Science Council of the Republic of China , Taiwan for their financial support of this project through contract number NSC-99-2631-S-008-001 and NSC-99-2511-S-008-002 .
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - Although different educational agents have been proposed to facilitate student learning, most of them operate from a "smart" (i.e.; intelligent and autonomous) perspective. Recently, a so-called "non-smart" perspective is also attracting increasing interest, and is now regarded as a topic worthwhile of researching. To this end, this study utilizes a reciprocal caring approach for the development of a pet-styled educational agent, named My-Pet, designed to help elementary school students learn Chinese idioms. The effects of the reciprocal caring approach are evaluated in two experiments. The results indicate that the My-Pet system could enhance students' relationship with educational agents, but do not contribute to students' learning achievement and efficiency. Based on these results, some implications on the value aspect of motivation and reflections on the further design of educational agents are discussed.
AB - Although different educational agents have been proposed to facilitate student learning, most of them operate from a "smart" (i.e.; intelligent and autonomous) perspective. Recently, a so-called "non-smart" perspective is also attracting increasing interest, and is now regarded as a topic worthwhile of researching. To this end, this study utilizes a reciprocal caring approach for the development of a pet-styled educational agent, named My-Pet, designed to help elementary school students learn Chinese idioms. The effects of the reciprocal caring approach are evaluated in two experiments. The results indicate that the My-Pet system could enhance students' relationship with educational agents, but do not contribute to students' learning achievement and efficiency. Based on these results, some implications on the value aspect of motivation and reflections on the further design of educational agents are discussed.
KW - Elementary education
KW - Interactive learning environments
KW - Multimedia/hypermedia systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864074040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84864074040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.05.015
DO - 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.05.015
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84864074040
SN - 0360-1315
VL - 59
SP - 1081
EP - 1088
JO - Computers and Education
JF - Computers and Education
IS - 4
ER -