Evaluation of the Use of Conversational Pedagogical Agents in the Teaching-Learning Process in Virtual Environments
Technological development provides educational institutions with a foundation for distance learning. Consequently, new pedagogical strategies have been studied and developed in order to enrich the teaching-learning process of the students in these environments. The vision of teaching as a social phenomenon is embedded in the domain of computer-aided learning, and in this way, ways of employing social characteristics in virtual teaching environments are explored. In this context, the area of Conversational Pedagogical Agents (CPA) denotes the development of applications that aim to improve the interaction between students and virtual learning environments. Studies point to the propensity of students for virtual learning environments that provide interaction with such agents, as they promote proximity to relevant educational roles, in a scenario that, in general, offers students a sense of detachment from these subjects. Therefore, this work aims to evaluate the potential of the use of conversational pedagogical agents in the learning process through virtual environments. The initial hypothesis is that the agent's presence promotes the student greater engagement with the content displayed, providing a more significant interaction and commitment to their learning, thus obtaining better results. In order to achieve the general objective the following specific objectives were established: Select appropriate metrics to measure the impacts of the use of CPA in the teaching-learning process in a virtual environment; Develop a knowledge base to be used by the CPA in a specific domain; Develop a CPA and integrate it into a virtual environment. Moreover, at least one course will be performed to compare the collected measures with the APC and without the APC.