Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Education
Gendered Socialization With An Embodied Agent: Creating A Social And Affable Mathematics Learning Environment For Middle-Grade Females, Yanghee Kim, J. Lim
Gendered Socialization With An Embodied Agent: Creating A Social And Affable Mathematics Learning Environment For Middle-Grade Females, Yanghee Kim, J. Lim
Yanghee Kim
This study examined whether or not embodied-agent-based learning would help middle-grade females have more positive mathematics learning experiences. The study used an explanatory mixed-methods research design. First, a classroom-based experiment was conducted with one hundred and twenty 9th-graders learning introductory algebra (53% male and 47% female; 51% Caucasian and 49% Latino). The results revealed that learner gender was a significant factor in the learners’ evaluations of their agent (η2 = .07), the learners’ task-specific attitudes (η2 = .05), and their task-specific self-efficacy (η2 = .06). In-depth interviews were then conducted with 22 students selected from the experiment participants. The interviews …
Digital Peers To Help Children's Text Comprehension And Perception, Yanghee Kim
Digital Peers To Help Children's Text Comprehension And Perception, Yanghee Kim
Yanghee Kim
Affable Reading Tutor (ART) is an online reading lesson designed for children who start reading to comprehend. A digital, human-like character (virtual peer) in ART serves as a peer model that demonstrates the use of the reading comprehension strategy questioning to help improve the learners’ comprehension of expository texts. This study, with 141 boys and girls in the fourth and fifth grades in the United States, examined the effects of virtual-peer presence (presence vs. absence vs. control) on learners’ text comprehension and also the effects of learner gender and virtual-peer attributes (human-like male vs. human-like female vs. robot still image) …
The Impact Of User Attributes And User Choice In An Agent-Based Environment, Yanghee Kim, Quan Wei
The Impact Of User Attributes And User Choice In An Agent-Based Environment, Yanghee Kim, Quan Wei
Yanghee Kim
This study examined the impact of learners’ attributes (gender and ethnicity) on their choice of a pedagogical agent and the impact of the attributes and choice on their perceptions of agent affability, task-specific attitudes, task-specific self-efficacy, and learning gains. Participants were 210 high-school male and female, Caucasian and Hispanic students who worked at computer-based algebra integrated with pedagogical agents. The results indicated, first, that students preferentially chose a same-gender agent and a same-ethnicity agent, supporting similarity-attraction theory. Second, males who chose an agent showed more positive attitudes toward working at the learning environment than did males who were assigned to …
A Social-Cognitive Framework For Designing Pedagogical Agents As Learning Companions, Yanghee Kim, Amy L. Baylor
A Social-Cognitive Framework For Designing Pedagogical Agents As Learning Companions, Yanghee Kim, Amy L. Baylor
Yanghee Kim
Teaching and learning are highly social activities. Seminal psychologists such as Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have theorized that social interaction is a key mechanism in the process of learning and development. In particular, the benefits of peer interaction for learning and motivation in classrooms have been broadly demonstrated through empirical studies. Hence, it would be valuable if computer-based environments could support a mechanism for a peer-interaction. Though no claim of peer equivalence is made, pedagogical agents as learning companions (PALs) -- animated digital characters functioning to simulate human-peer-like interaction -- might provide an opportunity to simulate such social interaction in …
Content-Based English Learning Through Pedagogical Agents, Yanghee Kim, P. Punahm, Y. Ko
Content-Based English Learning Through Pedagogical Agents, Yanghee Kim, P. Punahm, Y. Ko
Yanghee Kim
This paper suggests how an advanced technology called pedagogical agents can be applied to English education to benefit learners across ages through computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and content-based language learning (CBLL). CALL, when designed appropriately, has positively influenced the development of a learner’s linguistic proficiency and communicative competence (Chun, 1994; Fotos & Browne, 2004). CBLL integrates language learning with subject-matter learning to make language learning more meaningful (Snow, 2001; Swain, 1998). However, the conventional CALL programs are often criticized for the lacking a social context, considered essential for successful language learning ( Warschauer, 2004). Also, CBLL seems rarely applied to …