The Effect of Virtual Agent Gender and Embodiment on the Experiences and Performance of Students in Virtual Field Trips
Pejman Sajjadi, Jiayan Zhao, Jan Oliver Wallgrün, Tanya Furman, P. C. La Femina, Alex Fatemi, Zachary E. Zidik, Alexander Klippel · 2020
In this paper, we explore how the embodiment and gender of a virtual instructor can affect social presence, spatial presence, perceived learning effectiveness, and performance of students in virtual field trips. A pilot study with 22 students was conducted in the spring of 2020 in a geoscience course at The Pennsylvania State University. Our results show that both gender and embodiment of a virtual instructor can affect the social and learning experiences of students. A female virtual instructor elicited higher levels of social presence, spatial presence, and perceived learning effectiveness compared to a male virtual instructor; and an embodied virtual instructor elicited a higher feeling of spatial presence compared to a disembodied virtual instructor.