Choice of Pedagogical Agents as Virtual Math Tutors: Perspectives From Children and College Students

• In Event: 68.016 - Designing and Assessing Learning in Digital Environments

Abstract

The central research question of the study was: how do student demographics, math self-efficacy, and math-anxiety relate to and predict their choice of pedagogical agents serving as virtual math tutors? Participants included both middle school students and college students. Results suggested that 1) student gender predicted choice of agent gender for both groups of samples; 2) student ethnicity predicted choice of agent ethnicity for the middle school students but not for the college students; and 3) student math self-efficacy predicted choice of agent gender for the middle school students and choice of agent age for the college students, respectively. Implications of the results will be discussed during the presentation.

Authors

• Xiaoxia Huang, Western Kentucky University

• Justin L. Mathews, Western Kentucky University