Using Pedagogical Agents on Computer Assisted Instruction: A Synthesis of Studies


DİNÇER S., DOĞANAY A.

PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITESI EGITIM FAKULTESI DERGISI-PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, sa.39, ss.83-99, 2016 (ESCI) identifier

Özet

Pedagogical agents are generally defined as modules facilitating the social learning, guiding students, giving motivational support and feedback in educational software. The purpose of this study is to synthesize results of the studies done on pedagogical agents by using content analysis method. In order to seek for answers to research questions, the sources of the meta-analysis study conducted by Dincer and Yavuz (2013) about pedagogical agent were utilized, in addition to this; the articles published from this date on were included by being scanned. The studies carried out about pedagogical agents between 2002 and 2013 were analyzed and thirty one articles were included in the study. The articles included were examined in terms of their purposes and it was decided to group the themes within these titles: "effect on academic success", "effect on attitude", and agent features was investigated. The result reached was that approximately in all of the studies the software having pedagogical agent were more successful than the ones not having agent or traditional instruction and positively effect the attitude. Besides, it was concluded that the agent design giving the best results were the visual agents like human voice. As a result, it is thought that it is necessary to use the pedagogical agents in every educational software especially for guiding the students and increase their attitude and motivation. However, it is considered that during the design of the pedagogical agents making designs in accordance with cognitive load and the principles of multi-media; using more than one character and adding others such as voice, text, etc. to these characters will be beneficial.