SG-ACCORD: Designing Virtual Agents for Soft Skills Training in the School Context

Elena Dell’Aquila,Maria Clelia Zurlo,Davide Marocco,Federica Vallone

doi:10.3390/educsci12030174

Elena Dell’Aquila, Maria Clelia Zurlo + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030174

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Journal: Education sciences	Publication Date: Mar 2, 2022
Citations: 5	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Naples Federico II

Abstract

This study focuses on the behavior of interactive agents and how to ground their implementation in psychology and cognitive modeling to capture fundamental psycho-pedagogical elements to deliver an effective competency-based training and assessment tool for teachers, trainers, and educators working in the school context. The study describes the design and implementation of a Serious Game, “Attain Cultural Integration through COnflict Resolution skill Development” (SG-ACCORD), to develop and assess soft skills that are pivotal in educational working contexts (i.e., negotiation, effective communication, intercultural conflict management). The SG-ACCORD has been developed by applying a tailored methodology, namely the Educational Technology-enhanced Role-Playing, addressing two main facets: psycho-pedagogical (theoretical frameworks) and technological (production of artificial worlds based on computer-simulated models). The game is a single-player virtual role-play offering a series of scenarios reflecting the real-life experiences of teachers in which the role of interactions and human factors is crucial. It focuses on the simulation of a dialogue between two characters (an avatar controlled by a human player and a BOT computer-controlled counterpart), enacting interethnic conflicts between teacher and students within realistic school context scenarios. The SG-ACCORD represents a free, easily manageable, and flexible educational tool that can be used as a stand-alone resource and envisages an automatic feedback and debriefing system.

Highlights

Designing credible virtual agents is a fundamental research endeavor for many companies investing in an autonomous chatbot for customer care purposes within the realm of the fast-growing internet service market
The current study validates a methodology of designing agents and effective virtual training scenarios that implements psychological, emotional, and behavioral features to capture fundamental psycho-pedagogical elements and simulate interethnic conflict situations in the school context
The ACCORD e-platform has been found valuable in supporting teachers in effectively building better student–teacher relations and making better decisions in dealing with interethnic conflicts

Summary

Introduction

Designing credible virtual agents is a fundamental research endeavor for many companies investing in an autonomous chatbot for customer care purposes within the realm of the fast-growing internet service market. At the same time, designing agents for training and psycho-pedagogical purposes in simulation and role-playing scenarios is an increasing field that is transforming the traditional landscape of training practices and instruments [1]. Many virtual agents used in communication skills training simulations are based on human-authored dialogue instead of computer-generated dialogue. It is considered the golden standard in the natural language generation field. The process of designing the behaviors of such agents is an interdisciplinary effort that requires the cooperation of many specialties: psychology, cognitive modeling, and artificial intelligence, as well as graphics

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