Pedagogical Agent Support and Its Relationship to Learners’ Self-regulated Learning Strategy Use with an Intelligent Tutoring System

Dever, Daryn A.; Sonnenfeld, Nathan A; Wiedbusch, Megan; Azevedo, Roger

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-11644-5_27

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Furthermore, results showed that learners in the Prompt and Feedback condition used a greater number of SRL strategies when the page was relevant than those in the Control condition but there was no difference when the page was not relevant. This was consistent with hypotheses and prior literature (Azevedo et al., 2022; Dever et al., 2022; Harley et al., 2018; Lalle et al., 2017; Sikström et al., 2022; Wiedbusch et al., 2021) in which PAs successfully scaffolded learners' SRL strategy use and encouraged the use of SRL strategies when content was relevant towards goals. However, PAs did not discourage the use of SRL strategies when a page was not relevant towards a learner's subgoals, indicating that PAs need to be improved to better encourage accurate SRL deployment in which more strategies should be deployed on pages that are relevant towards subgoals and discouraged when pages are not relevant.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…CE); and (2) fatigue from exerting themselves as self-regulating learners due to the high cognitive load required to deploy effective SRL strategies (Wang & Lajoie, 2023). Findings from this research question enhance current literature and work on PA scaffolding in that PAs are necessary for learners to be supported in accurate and efficient SRL strategy use (Dever et al, 2022;Wiedbusch et al, 2021). Furthermore, literature supports the fading of PA scaffolding as learners demonstrate SRL competency (Davis, 2015;Noroozi et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Dever et al. (2022) found that learners who received PA prompts to deploy SRL strategies demonstrated greater learning outcomes and functional SRL. This study found that learners self‐initiated more SRL strategies when they received PA scaffolding, showing that PAs supplemented SRL strategy use and encouraged learners to deploy their own strategies.…”

Section: Pedagogical Agents As Scaffolders Of Srlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research Question 1 : How do learners' frequency of SRL strategy use differ across scaffolding conditions and content relevance towards subgoals? We hypothesize that, with PA prompt and feedback scaffolds, there will be a greater frequency of SRL strategy use when the instructional content is relevant to learners' subgoals rather than irrelevant (Azevedo et al., 2022; Dever et al., 2022; Harley et al., 2018; Lalle et al., 2017; Sikström et al., 2022; Wiedbusch et al., 2021).…”

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research Question 2: What is the likelihood that an SRL strategy will be self‐initiated by a learner or prompted by a pedagogical agent depending on the time on page and task and relevance of the content to learner subgoals? Based on literature supporting PAs’ effectiveness (Azevedo et al., 2022; Dever et al., 2022; Harley et al., 2018; Lalle et al., 2017; Sikström et al., 2022; Wiedbusch et al., 2021), we hypothesize that the likelihood SRL strategies are prompted by PAs will be higher if the instructional content is relevant to learners' subgoals and as time on task and page progresses.…”

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Investigating pedagogical agents' scaffolding of self‐regulated learning in relation to learners' subgoals

Dever,

Wiedbusch,

Romero

et al. 2024

Brit J Educational Tech

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Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to scaffold learners' self‐regulated learning (SRL) via prompts and feedback to promote learners' monitoring and regulation of their cognitive, affective, metacognitive and motivational processes to achieve their (sub)goals. This study examines PAs' effectiveness in scaffolding and teaching SRL during learning with MetaTutor, an ITS on the human circulatory system. Undergraduates (N = 118) were randomly assigned to a condition: Control Condition (i.e. learners could only self‐initiate SRL strategies) and Prompt and Feedback Condition (i.e. PAs prompted learners to engage in SRL). Learners' log‐file data captured when strategies were used, the initiator of the strategy (i.e. learner and PA), and the relevance of instructional content pages in relation to learner subgoals. While results showed that PAs were effective scaffolders of SRL in which they prompted learners to engage in SRL strategies more when content was relevant towards their subgoals and as time on page and task increased, there were mixed findings about the effectiveness of PAs as teachers of SRL. Findings show how production rules guiding PA prompts can improve their scaffolding and teaching of SRL across the learning task – through contextualizing SRL strategies to the instructional content and in relation to the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Most learners struggle to efficiently and effectively use self‐regulated learning (SRL) strategies to attain goals and subgoals. There is a need for SRL to be scaffolded for learners to manage multiple goals and subgoals while learning about complex STEM topics. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) typically incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to prompt learners to engage in SRL strategy and provide feedback. There are mixed findings on the effectiveness of PAs in scaffolding learners' SRL. What this paper adds We consider PAs not only scaffolders but also teachers of SRL. Results showed that while PAs encouraged the use of SRL strategies when the content was relevant to subgoals, they did not discourage the use of SRL strategies when the content was not relevant. Results for this study were mixed in their support of PAs as teachers of SRL. Learners increasingly depended on PAs to prompt SRL strategies as time on task progressed. Implications for practice and/or policy PAs are effective scaffolders of SRL with more research needed to understand their role as teachers of SRL. PA scaffolding is more essential as time on task progresses. When deploying specific cognitive and metacognitive SRL strategies, the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals should be taken into account.

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