An Investigative Study on the Effects of Pedagogical Agents on Intrinsic, Extraneous and Germane Cognitive Load: Experimental Findings With Dyscalculia and Non-Dyscalculia Learners

Abstract

Several studies have warranted the need to explore the relationship between pedagogical agents in the learning environment and the cognitive load on the learners, specifically, to study the influence on learner populations with different learning and motivation needs. The present work investigates the effects of the presence of a pedagogical agent in the learning environment on intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load for the dyscalculia and non-learner population. The proposed system intelligently investigates the learner, recommends an exclusive learning dyscalculia path and after tutoring assesses learning gain, and retention. Learner experience and effects of the pedagogical agent on types of cognitive loads are discussed on basis of post tutoring analysis. Samples of 82 learners have been studied, experimental findings based on research questions have been reported and conclusions discussed. Our assumption that 'a well-articulated and well-designed instructional design exerts a minimal extraneous cognitive load on learners and facilitates learning gain and retention' is consistent with the obtained results. The result conclude that pedagogical agent does not add to intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. An improved Germane Cognitive load and good amount of knowledge retention is noticed post learning.

Emotion-Related Pedagogical Agent: A Systematic Literature Review

“…ACM Q2 [23], [24], [25], [26] IEEE Q1 [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33] Science Direct Q1 [34], [35], [36], [13], [33], [37], [38] Springer Q1 [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [18], [55], [56], [57], [58] Others Q1 [59], [60] Q2 [61], [62], [63], [64],…”

“…Asynchronous [18], [25], [26], [28], [29], [30], [31], [33], [34], [35], [39], [40], [41], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [63], [66], Synchronous [24], [27], [38], [62] Other [48] Role Peer [18], [47], [55], [58] Tutor [24], [28], [29], [30][26], [31], [34], [35], [37], [38],…”

“…Full body [56] Half-body [25], [28], [39] Head only [18], [43], [44], [46], [49], [51], [52], [59] Other Avatar Design Non-human [41], [60], [66], [36] No appearance [34], [45], [48], [53], [57],…”

“…Test answer/ work result [24], [26], [28], [30], [31], [34], [36], [47], [48], [53], [54], [18], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [62], [65], [66] Menu/ user preference [27], [29], [37], [38], [43], [44], [45] Chatbot interaction [41], [46], [49], [52] Speech recognition [25], [50] Emotion recognition [42]…”

“…A single system can implement multiple agents with various roles, including cases where a single agent assumes multiple roles. In agents who have more than one role, agents can act as tutors, motivators, or friends for students [28]. An example of an agent with a multi-agent system and multiple roles, for example, one agent acts as a teacher and another agent becomes a learner's partner in learning so that a trialogue is created where agents acting as partners may have wrong answers while agents who are teachers always have the right answers.…”