Interface agents as social models for female students: The effects of agent visual presence and appearance on female students’ attitudes and beliefs

Rosenberg-Kima, Rinat B.; Baylor, Amy L.; Plant, E. Ashby; Doerr, Celeste

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.03.017

Cited by 124 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Next, given that the attractive agents were most influential as social models in this choice study, a large-scale experimental study was conducted with the eight attractive agents for undergraduate women (Rosenberg-Kima et al 2008). Results revealed a main effect for gender where participants reported more positive stereotypes of engineering after interacting with a female agent, perhaps because it challenged their existing beliefs of a typical engineer.…”

Section: Review Promoting Motivation With Virtual Agents a L Baylomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(b) Other appearance features: attractiveness, 'coolness', age Moving beyond the effects of agent gender and race/ ethnicity, Baylor and colleagues (Baylor & Plant 2005;Rosenberg-Kima et al 2008;Plant et al 2009) manipulated other appearance features such as agent attractiveness, 'coolness' (operationalized by clothing and hairstyle) and age to investigate their influence on students' motivation towards engineering as a possible career. When given a choice of 16 validated agents varying with respect to attractiveness, 'coolness', age and gender (figure 4), undergraduate women were significantly more likely to choose the female, attractive, young, cool agent as 'most like themselves' and also as the agent they 'most wanted to be like'.…”

Section: Review Promoting Motivation With Virtual Agents a L Baylomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Promoting motivation with virtual agents and avatars: role of visual presence and appearance

Baylor

2009

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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217

115

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Anthropomorphic virtual agents can serve as powerful technological mediators to impact motivational outcomes such as self-efficacy and attitude change. Such anthropomorphic agents can be designed as simulated social models in the Bandurian sense, providing social influence as virtual 'role models'. Of particular value is the capacity for designing such agents as optimized social models for a target audience and context. Importantly, the visual presence and appearance of such agents can have a major impact on motivation and affect regardless of the underlying technical sophistication. Empirical results of different instantiations of agent presence and appearance are reviewed for both autonomous virtual agents and avatars that represent a user.

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Section: Review Promoting Motivation With Virtual Agents a L Baylomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Review Promoting Motivation With Virtual Agents a L Baylomentioning

confidence: 99%

Promoting motivation with virtual agents and avatars: role of visual presence and appearance

Baylor

2009

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

217

115

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“…The influence of external APA properties on female students' motivation for science was studied by Rosenberg-Kima et al (2008) in two consecutive experiments. Study 1 investigated the hypothesis that an APA can be a more persuasive social model when the agent is embodied and not merely a voice.…”

Section: Animated Pedagogical Agents and Student Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animated pedagogical agents effects on enhancing student motivation and learning in a science inquiry learning environment

Meij

Harmsen

2015

Education Tech Research Dev

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This study focuses on the design and testing of a motivational animated pedagogical agent (APA) in an inquiry learning environment on kinematics. The aim of including the APA was to enhance students' perceptions of task relevance and selfefficacy. Given the under-representation of girls in science classrooms, special attention was given to designing an APA that would appeal to the female students. A review of the literature suggested that the best design solution would be an agent who was female, young, attractive, and ''cool''. An experiment compared three conditions: agent (image and voice), voice (no image), and control (no image and no voice). The research question was whether students' motivation and knowledge changed over time as they worked in the inquiry learning environment, and whether condition and gender affected such changes. Participants were 61 third-year students (mean age 14.7 years) from a secondary school. Gender was distributed evenly within and across conditions. A significant main effect of time on self-efficacy was found, with self-efficacy beliefs increasing significantly for both boys and girls. In addition, there was a significant interaction between time, condition, and gender for self-efficacy. About halfway during training, girls' self-efficacy beliefs significantly increased in both experimental conditions and decreased in the control condition. For boys the opposite pattern was found. Girls also gave higher appraisals for the agent. Students in all three conditions realized significant knowledge gains, which did not differ by gender. The discussion critically considers the need for, and design of motivational scaffolding in inquiry learning environments.

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“…One study indicates that computerbased anthropomorphic interface agents that appear female, young, and cool can have a positive effect on stereotypes and self-efficacy of female college-age students toward engineering (Rosenberg-Kima et al, 2008). Another study indicates that attitudes toward these fields and performance on related math skills tests could also be improved by computer-based social models that appear female, young, and cool to middle-school students (Plant et al, 2009).…”

Section: The Lack Of Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lagging Behind: The Current State of Females in Physics

Myers¹

2012

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Interface agents as social models for female students: The effects of agent visual presence and appearance on female students’ attitudes and beliefs

Cited by 124 publications

References 35 publications

Promoting motivation with virtual agents and avatars: role of visual presence and appearance

Promoting motivation with virtual agents and avatars: role of visual presence and appearance

Animated pedagogical agents effects on enhancing student motivation and learning in a science inquiry learning environment

Lagging Behind: The Current State of Females in Physics

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