Influence of Pedagogical Agent Deictic Gestures on Construction Management Students Learning within a 360-Degree Virtual Field Trip

7 pages•Published: May 15, 2022

Jing Wen, Shrishail Zalake and Masoud Gheisari

Abstract

Field trips are widely recognized as an essential educational component to connect classrooms with the real world. When students don’t have access to real field trips, virtual ones have been developed by educators and researchers. Pedagogical agents have been applied to serve as a tour guide and educational tool that facilitate students learning in a virtual learning environment. Such agents are computer software generated and controlled entities that replicate or emulate humans. Previous studies have found that adding anthropomorphic traits to pedagogical agents in learning environments has significantly improved students’ learning experience; however, this area has yet been explored in the context of a virtual construction field trip. In this study, a virtual field trip to a complex mechanical room was developed using 360-degree panoramas and a pedagogical agent was employed to lead the tour. This study focuses on one single anthropomorphic trait - deictic gestures, which are pointing gestures used to refer to specific objects – and explores how such trait affects students’ quantitative learning outcomes and feedbacks on four aspects of the agent, including facilitating learning, credibility, human-like, and engaging. It was found that deictic gestures can improve students’ learning performance and attitudes on multiple aspects of the agent.

Keyphrases: anthropomorphic traits, construction education, deictic gesture, pedagogical agent, virtual field trip

In: Tom Leathem, Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud (editors). ASC2022. 58th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference, vol 3, pages 715-721.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/p3j3
	https://doi.org/10.29007/234r

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{ASC2022:Influence_Pedagogical_Agent_Deictic,
  author    = {Jing Wen and Shrishail Zalake and Masoud Gheisari},
  title     = {Influence of Pedagogical Agent Deictic Gestures on Construction Management Students Learning within a 360-Degree Virtual Field Trip},
  booktitle = {ASC2022. 58th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference},
  editor    = {Tom Leathem and Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Built Environment},
  volume    = {3},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2632-881X},
  url       = {/publications/paper/p3j3},
  doi       = {10.29007/234r},
  pages     = {715-721},
  year      = {2022}}

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