VIRTUAL PEDAGOGICAL AGENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF VIRTUAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS: FRAMEWORK AND THEORETICAL MODELS

Abstract

Teaching and learning are highly social activities. Seminal psychologists such as Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have theorized that social interaction is a key mechanism in the process of learning and development. In particular, the benefits of peer interaction for learning and motivation in classrooms have been broadly demonstrated through empirical studies. Hence, it would be valuable if computer-based environments could support a mechanism for a peer interaction. Though no claim of peer equivalence is made, pedagogical agents as learning companions - animated digital characters functioning to simulate human-peer-like interaction-might provide an opportunity to simulate such social interaction in computer-based learning. In this paper we ground the instructional potential of pedagogical agents in several social-cognitive theories, including distributed cognition, social interaction, and Bandura's social-cognitive theory. We discuss how specific concepts of the theories might support various instructional functions of pedagogical agents, acknowledging concepts that these agents cannot address. Based on the theoretical perspectives, we suggest key constituents, roles and functions for designing pedagogical agents in virtual learning environments. Also, we relate to some experimental agents or theoretical examples. Using the experiences of teams involved in the development of commercially available or in the design of theoretical agents, we present our vision of designing and implementing such a pedagogical virtual agent in the context of the SAPIENT applied research project (Intelligent Tutoring System-Evolutionary Approach in e-Learning). In the proposed project the virtual pedagogical agent is automatically customized to address several features of each learner, such as appearance, age and gender. The role, appearance, dynamics, communication channels and envisaged behavior of this virtual agent will be discussed along with the possible techniques to be used in its development.