DIFFERENT PEDAGOGICAL AGENT ’ S INSTRUCTIONAL ROLES IN E-LEARNING COURSEWARE AND ITS RELATION TO LEARNING

This paper discusses different pedagogical agent’s instructional roles in e-learning and its relation to learning. In particular, this paper elaborates on the Social Development Theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and the Principles of e-Learning Design (Clark & Mayer, 2003). This paper also elaborates on past related research on the pedagogical agent’s instructional roles and a proposed research methodology to investigate the impact of different pedagogical agent’s instructional roles on learners with different ability levels in e-learning towards motivational and learning outcomes. INTRODUCTION Pedagogical Agents are animated life-like characters designed to facilitate and support human learning by interacting with learners in an interactive computer-mediated learning environments (Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002). Animated pedagogical agents can promote student motivation and engagement, and engender affective as well as cognitive responses (Baylor, 2005). Thus, animated pedagogical agents offer great promise for broadening the bandwidth of tutorial communication and increasing learning environments’ ability to engage and motivate learners (Johnson & Rickel, 2000). Pedagogical agent research and development has made significant strides over the past few years, incorporating animated computer characters that are increasingly more realistic and human-like with respect to their dialogue, appearance, animation and the instructional outcomes they produce (Baylor, Cole, Graesser, & Johnson, 2005). Numbers of computer scientists developing animated pedagogical agents and a correspondingly large amount of investigation regarding system development principles (Ghalib, 2006; Lester, Voerman, Towns, & Callaway, 1997; Nunes et al., 2002; Zakaria, Ahdon, Siraj, & Husin, 2002). However, there is still significant lack of research on the instructional roles of pedagogical agents for supporting learning-related outcomes. Several researchers suggested that computers in education or multimedia learning may provide their greatest potential for disadvantaged learners, those of low-ability and concrete operational students (Cavin & Lagowski, 1978; Huppert, Lomask, & lazarowitz, 2002). In other hand, some researchers stated that computer-based instruction was observed to be more effective for high-ability learners (Ardac & Sezen, 2002). However, it is vital to design and develop a multimedia instruction that will benefit both lowability and high-ability learners. In undertaking this study, the following research questions were put forward: a. Is there any significant difference in the learning outcomes (achievement score) between the low-ability and high-ability learners with guidance from different pedagogical agent’s instructional roles (expert, motivator and mentor)? b. Is there any significant difference in the motivational outcomes (IMMS score) between the low-ability and high-ability learners with guidance from different pedagogical agent’s instructional roles (expert, motivator and mentor)? c. Is there an instructional role of pedagogical agent that can benefit both low-ability and high-ability learners? 804 1st International Malaysian Educational Technology Convention PEDAGOGICAL AGENT’S INSTRUCTIONAL ROLES Over the years, researchers have suggested various roles of pedagogical agents, such as agent as cognitive tool (Baylor, 1999), mentor (Baylor, 2000), and learning companion (Kim, 2005). The important aspect of designing PA is to carefully design their role within the learning environment to serve the intended educational purposes (Baylor & Kim, 2003). In their studies, they effectively simulated pedagogical agents as an expert, a motivator, and a mentor who served distinct instructional purposes. Table 1: Characteristics of the Agent’s Instructional Roles (Baylor & Kim, 2003) An expert agent exhibits mastery or extensive knowledge and perform better than average within a domain. Whereas a motivator agent not necessarily knowledgeable but rather suggested his own ideas and verbally encouraging the learner to sustain the task (Bandura, 1997). As for a mentor agent, it does not simply provide information but rather provides guidance for the learner to bridge the gap between the current and desired skill levels (Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002). THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES Social Development Theory The theoretical base for this study originated from Social Development Theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and the Principles of e-Learning Design (Clark & Mayer, 2003). According to Vygotsky, social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. His theory of social interaction asserts that a person learns from his or her context of social development and culture. Vygotsky’s theory of social interaction leads him to the zone of proximal development. Zone of proximal development is the difference of problem solving ability that a person has acquired and the ability or potential that he or she can obtain from interacting with others, such as, friends, teachers and related peers. Social development theory also promotes learning contexts in which students play an active role in learning. Roles of the teacher and student are therefore shifted, as a teacher should collaborate with his or her students in order to help facilitate meaning construction in students. Social Development Theory concludes that social interaction precedes development; consciousness and cognition is the end product of socialization and social behavior. Expert Motivator Mentor