October 2012 Volume 15 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

their motivations and environmental stimuli, and consequently improved student’s learning experience through
incorporating multiple interactive behaviors and emotional expressions.
The project with proposed agents has achieved satisfactory feedback from students of secondary school (2009-2010)
and primary school (2011) in Singapore. However, there are still issues which need to be addressed in the future.
From the assessment result, we found that the system lacks assessment tools which can take the advantage of the
virtual learning environment to evaluate student’s learning skills from analyzing their behavior data. Currently, the
system assessment results were derived from students’ learning outcome and their preference to TAs by academic
tests and questionnaires. However, since our project is a computer-based system, it is convenient to collect student’s
learning behavior data during their play. We believe these types of data will reveal more information which cannot
be discerned from traditional assessment. For instance, during the same period of time, students who attempt more
tasks may possess a greater desire in learning than those who attempt fewer. Similarly, students who deal with tasks
of higher-difficulty levels may have greater curiosity and may be more willing to face challenges.
In the future work, we plan to incorporate new functions into the existing system to record all types of user behavior
data in the virtual learning environment. The data will be analyzed to assess student characteristics related to selfdirected
learning, such as self-efficacy, learning motivation, reflective thinking skills. We will also conduct more
experimental and classroom field studies to assess students using both questionnaires and the collected behavior data.
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