Deliverable 4.4 - INSEAD CALT

AtGentive IST-4-027529-STP - Attentive Agents for Collaborative LearnersEmbodied agentGenerally, the teachers concluded that female students were more likely to listen to theagent than male students.It was suggested that the agent would be more effective if it were to show the studentswhat to do (walk to the appropriate screen location, point, type and have words appearas they would for the students, etc.) as well as describe.Control group: Students in this group were upset at first that the agent wasn’t helpingthem, but later they accepted that David was not going to help them and got to likehaving him there.Experimental group: Less notice was taken of the embodied agent after mid-way throughthe pilot. The probable reason was because “they realised Honza was not solving theirproblems”. In particular, it was thought that the agent was very helpful at first, but thehelp they needed changed over time while the agent did not.The agent did not always leave enough time for the students to read, understand,discuss (between themselves) and take action before giving another instruction.Conclusion: Further improvements to the embodied agent are possible.AtGentSchoolIn the English version of AtGentSchool the terms “Concept map” and “Mind map” areused interchangeably. When translated into Czech, the two translations had significantlydifferent meanings. This was not picked up by the heuristic evaluation as that wasconducted on the English version. During the pilot, the difference caused confusion forthe students.Conclusion: Any translation work needs to be completed well in advance. Time needs tobe allocated for a native speaker who also understands the system to check it in detail.The “smiley” (feedback) buttons tended to be seen as statements, rather than input (i.e.they were smiling at the students).Conclusion: If possible, test software with one or two representative students from thetarget schools before a main (or pilot) study.Difference between groupsTeachers observed that the Experimental group worked noticeably faster then theControl group at the beginning of the pilot. By mid-way, this was still the case, but theControl group had settled in to a steady, though slower, pace. By the end of the pilot, thedifferences between the two groups did not seem anywhere near as pronounced.TimeThe time available for the pilot placed very high demands on both the teachers andstudents. In the initial lessons, teachers needed to understand the software, deal withtechnical problems, explain to their students how to use the system and what to do, newways of working (taking instructions from the screen, working in pairs at the computer),implement student questionnaires, complete diaries and their own questionnaires, alongwith the rest of their usual teaching duties. Teachers who were able to allocate more timefrom their schedule in the short period between availability of the software and the firstfew lessons of the pilot were in a much better position to assist the students.Del 4.4: AtGentive Final Evaluation Report page 35