ERIC Number: EJ1232155
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Nov
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0007-1013
EISSN: N/A
Sometimes More Is Better: Agent Gestures, Procedural Knowledge and the Foreign Language Learner
Davis, Robert O.; Vincent, Joseph
British Journal of Educational Technology, v50 n6 p3252-3263 Nov 2019
Pedagogical agents in multimedia learning environments have frequently been designed to produce pointing gestures (deictic) to direct spatial awareness. Although this might be beneficial for native English-speaking students who possess high levels of comprehension, only using pointing gestures with foreign language students learning English is problematic because these students need more assistance with language comprehension than just directing spatial awareness. The purpose of this study was to explore how gesture type and gesture frequency help foreign language students perceive the agent's persona and the ability to recall procedural information. The results found one significant interaction between average gestures and no gesture in terms of facilitation, but all other conditions and persona subscales were not significant. For learning outcomes, the enhanced gesture condition significantly recalled more information than the no gesture condition (p = 0.017), and was approaching significance with the conversational gesture condition (p = 0.059). The findings suggest that when the learning population consists of foreign language students, pedagogical agents should use representational and beat gestures to help students comprehend more of the language, and the gesture frequency needs to be increased to account for the lack of verbal listening skills with this population.
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language), Multimedia Instruction, Nonverbal Communication, Recall (Psychology), Interpersonal Communication, Comprehension
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A