Evolution of user interaction: the case of agent adele

Animated pedagogical agents offer promise as a means of making computer-aided learning more engaging and effective. To achieve this, an agent must be able to interact with the learner in a manner that appears believable, and that furthers the pedagogical goals of the learning environment. In this paper we describe how the user interaction model of one pedagogical agent evolved through an iterative process of design and user testing. The pedagogical agent Adele assists students as they assess and diagnose medical and dental patients in clinical settings. We describe the results of, and our responses to, three studies of Adele, involving over two hundred and fifty medical and dental students over five years, that have led to an improved tutoring strategy, and discuss the interaction possibilities of two different reasoning engines. With the benefit of hindsight, the paper articulates the principles that govern effective user-agent interaction in educational contexts, and describes how t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: IUI
• Authors: W. Lewis Johnson, Erin Shaw, Andrew Marshall, Catherine LaBore
• Keywords: IUI 2003, Pedagogical Agent, Pedagogical Agent Adele, Software Engineering, User Interaction Model