Benefits of Affective Pedagogical Agents in Multimedia Instruction.

Jiangnan Guo,Xiaowei Feng,Yanan Wu,Jing Wang,Yanqing Wang,Shaoying Gong

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.797236

Jiangnan Guo, Xiaowei Feng + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.797236

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Abstract

The goal of the present study is to explore whether the affective states (happy or neutral) of a pedagogical agent (PA) in an online multimedia lesson yields different learning processes and outcomes, and whether the effects of affective PAs depend on the learners’ emotion regulation strategies and their prior knowledge. In three experiments, undergraduates were asked to view a narrated animation about synaptic transmission that included either a happy PA (smiling expression and enthusiastic voice) or a neutral PA (neutral expression and calm voice) and subsequently took emotions, motivation, cognitive outcomes tests. Across three experiments, the happy PA group reported more positive emotions (ds = 0.70, 0.46, and 0.60) and higher level of motivation (ds = 0.76, 0.49, and 0.51) than the neutral PA group. Moreover, the happy PA prompted higher germane load (d = 0.41) than a neutral PA in Experiment 3. However, adding a happy PA to the screen did not improve learning performance. In addition, in Experiment 2, learners’ usage of emotion regulation strategies moderated the effectiveness of affective PA on positive emotions in learners. Specifically, happy PAs increased the positive emotions of students who used expressive suppression strategy (d = 0.99) but not those who used cognitive reappraisal strategy (d = 0.13). In Experiment 3, the effectiveness of affective PAs was not moderated by learners’ prior knowledge. Results support the cognitive affective theory of learning with media (CATLM) that students are happier and more motivated when they learn from happy PAs than from neutral PAs.

Highlights

Objective and FrameworkHow to design video lectures to arouse learners’ positive emotions, and will such positive emotions affect learning? Prior research has mostly focused on the question of how to design learning materials to foster affective processing in multimedia instruction (Um et al, 2012; Plass et al, 2014; Shangguan et al, 2019)
Builds on our understanding of positive emotional design (PED) in learning materials, the present study investigates the emotional design of pedagogical agent (PA), which fits within the second way of emotional design
The goal of Experiment 1 was to investigate whether affective PAs with smiling facial expressions and enthusiastic voices could arouse learners’ positive emotions, increase intrinsic motivation and enhance learning performance from a narrated animation explaining the process of synaptic transmission

Summary

Introduction

Objective and FrameworkHow to design video lectures to arouse learners’ positive emotions, and will such positive emotions affect learning? Prior research has mostly focused on the question of how to design learning materials to foster affective processing in multimedia instruction (Um et al, 2012; Plass et al, 2014; Shangguan et al, 2019). The pedagogical agent (PA) is a character that is presented on a screen to deliver instruction through verbal and non-verbal communication (Moreno, 2005; Veletsianos and Russell, 2014; Lin et al, 2020; Treal et al, 2020). In this case, researchers are increasingly concerned on how Affective Pedagogical Agents to incorporate emotional design elements into PAs (e.g., affective pedagogical agents) to arouse learners’ positive emotions and motivation, improving learning. The goal of the present study is to explore the effects of affective PAs in a multimedia narrated video, and further identify the important boundary conditions that impact affective PAs

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