Beyond robotic wastelands of time: Abandoned pedagogical agents and new pedalled pedagogies

Abstract

Chatbots, known as pedagogical agents in educational settings, have a long history of use, beginning with Alan Turing's work. Since then online chatbots have become embedded into the fabric of technology. Yet understandings of these technologies are inchoate and often untheorised. Integration of chatbots into educational settings over the past five years suggests an increase in interest in the ways in which chatbots might be adopted and adapted for teaching and learning. This article draws on historical literature and theories that to date have largely been ignored in order to (re)contextualise two studies that used responsive evaluation to examine the use of pedagogical agents in education. Findings suggest that emotional interactions with pedagogical agents are intrinsic to a user's sense of trust, and that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are vital when using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning. Such findings need to be considered in the light of ways in which notions of learning are being redefined in the academy and the extent to which new literacies and new technologies are being pedalled as pedagogies in ways that undermine what higher education is, is for, and what learning means.

Rediscovering the use of chatbots in education: A systematic literature review

“…Smutny and Schereiberova [62], after their analyses of 47 educational chatbots on Facebook Messenger, consider four main categories (teaching, humanity, affection, and accessibility) as appropriate quality attributes for teaching, even as they noted that the technology is still incipient. Savin‐Baden et al [55] define chatbots as pedagogical agents that get students to rate them as friendly, professional, or useful. According to Savin‐Baden et al [55], conversation is an important factor in building trust between a chatbot and a student, so assessing the quality of the conversation is a relevant factor in determining the quality of the chatbot.…”

“…Savin‐Baden et al [55] define chatbots as pedagogical agents that get students to rate them as friendly, professional, or useful. According to Savin‐Baden et al [55], conversation is an important factor in building trust between a chatbot and a student, so assessing the quality of the conversation is a relevant factor in determining the quality of the chatbot. Regarding conversation, Bii and Too [7] consider the following as the attributes of a conversation: mutual understanding, common ground, trustworthiness, active listening, and humor.…”

JEPPY: An Interactive Pedagogical Agent to Aid Novice Programmers in Correcting Syntax Errors

“…Pedagogical agents were employed by Carlotto and Jacques [13], Kim [14], Liew, Zin, and Sahari [15], and Kim, Thayne, and Wei [16] in a form of an animated characters, virtual or digital characters. It was used as a chatbot as reported by Savin-Baden, Tombs, and Bhakta [17], an influencer such as of Kim and Baylor [18], or a tutor Kim [14]. They can also simulate conversations and nonverbal behavior according to Liew and Tan [19].…”

Say What? Learner Reactions to Unexpected Agent Dialogue Moves

“…Pedagogical agents in learning environments are designed to provide a social presence to positively affect learning either as an emulation of a teacher or a colearner (Chae et al, 2016;Lee et al, 2007). Researchers have studied determinants of learners' perception of trust of the agents, including the physical appearance of (Burgoon et al, 2016;Chae et al, 2016), emotional connection to (Savin-Baden et al, 2015), and the perception of caring from (Lee et al, 2007) the agent. The trust emanating from these factors appears to have a causal impact on learner participation intention, disclosure of information, and learning, respectively.…”