Can an angry pedagogical agent enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-09-2021-0079 |
| Published date | 17 May 2022 |
| Date | 17 May 2022 |
| Pages | 555-576 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
| Author | Tze Wei Liew,Su-Mae Tan,Si Na Kew |
Can an angry pedagogical agent
enhance mental effort and
learning performance in a
multimedia learning environment?
Tze Wei Liew
Human-Centric Technology Interaction SIG, Faculty of Business,
Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia
Su-Mae Tan
Faculty of Information Science and Technology,
Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia, and
Si Na Kew
Language Academy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose –This studyaims to examine if a pedagogical agent’s expressed anger,when framed as a feedback
cue, can enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment than
expressedhappiness.
Design/methodology/approach –A between-subjects experiment was conducted in which learners
engaged with a multimedia learning material that taught programmingalgorithms, featuring a pedagogical
agent who expressed anger or happiness as a feedback cue in response to the learners’prior performance.
Learners completeda self-reported scaleand post-test for measuring mental effort and learning performance,
respectively.
Findings –Female learners reported higher mental effort and had better learning performance when the
pedagogical agent expressed anger than happiness. Male learners reported marginally lower mental effort
when the pedagogicalagent expressed anger than happiness.
Originality/value –This study focuses on a pedagogicalagent’s expressed emotion as social information
to learners. Extending from research advocating a pedagogical agent’s positive emotional expression, this
study highlights the potentialbenefits of a pedagogical agent’s negative emotionalexpression, such as anger,
as a cue for learnersto enhance learning effort and performancein a multimedia learning environment.
Keywords Emotion, Happiness, Anger, Multimedia learning, Mental effort, Pedagogical agent,
Social information
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Pedagogical agents are anthropomorphic digitally generated characters expressing
dialogues, bodygestures, facial expressions andemotional displays to simulate instructional
The authors appreciate the insightful comments from the editor and the three anonymous reviewers.
This research was supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education under Fundamental
Research Grant Scheme with ID: FRGS/1/2019/SSI09/MMU/03/5.
Declaration of competing interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Mental effort
555
Received19 September 2021
Revised2 January 2022
1April 2022
Accepted23 April 2022
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.123 No. 9/10, 2022
pp. 555-576
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-09-2021-0079
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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roles in multimedia learning environments (Kim and Baylor, 2016;Veletsianos and Russell,
2014;Castro-Alonso et al.,2021).T he social agency theory s tates that infusing soc ial cues into
multimedia learning environments encourages learners to treat their learning engagements
as social interactions (Mayer,2014,2017). Grounded on the social agencytheory, pedagogical
agents can convey social cues that motivate learners to foster deeper cognitive processing,
leading to enhanced learning outcomes (Schroeder et al.,2013,2017;Schroeder and Adesope,
2014).
The valence, quality and form of a pedagogicalagent’s social cues can influence learners’
affective, motivational and cognitive outcomes differently in a multimedia learning
environment (Castro-Alonso et al., 2021;Schroeder and Adesope, 2014;Schroeder et al.,
2013). Pedagogical agents with socially appealing cues derived from voice, facial features
and gestures benefit multimedia learning, whereas undesirable social cues can adversely
impact motivation and learning outcomes (Domagk, 2010;Mayer and Dapra, 2012;Mayer,
2014). Thus, unsurprisingly, most research tends to extol the virtues of virtual agents or
instructors expressingpositive emotion in multimedia learning materials.
For instance, studies have demonstrated that the pedagogical agent or human
instructor’s expressed enthusiasm can lead to better affective, motivational, cognitive and
learning outcomes (Liew et al., 2017,2020;Beege et al.,2020). The findings by Wang et al.
(2019) showed that a heightened level of a human instructor’s expressiveness in digital
media could enhance learners’arousal level, learning satisfaction and learning outcome,
specifically for medium-term recall. Similarly, Ba et al. (2021) reported that a pedagogical
agent that expressed positive emotional cues enhanced learners’emotional states and
transfer performance than a pedagogical agentthat displayed neutral emotional cues. More
recently, Wang et al. (2022) revealed that learners experienced more positive emotions and
motivation when a pedagogical agent expressed a positive emotional tone comprising a
smiling facial expression and an enthusiastic voice compared to a neutral emotional tone
exhibiting a neutralfacial expression and a calm voice.
The preceding relates to the cognitiveaffective model of e-learning, positing that learners
can infer the emotional tones expressed by pedagogical agents (Horovitz and Mayer, 2021;
Lawson et al., 2021a,2021b;Lawson and Mayer, 2021). The recognition of the agents’
emotional stances by the learnerscan:
induce the sameemotional states in learners, leadingto shifts in learners’motivational
conditionsthat affect learning outcomes (Horovitz and Mayer, 2021); and
influence the perceived social qualities within the learning environment, which in
turn affect learning effort and performance (Lawson et al., 2021a,2021b;Lawson
and Mayer, 2021).
The findings above indicate the positivity principle: expressed positive emotions lead to
better learning outcomes than expressed negative emotions. This premise extends seminal
works grounded on the social-cognitiveframework (Kim et al., 2007;Kim, 2005), which have
collectively demonstrated that pedagogical agents’positive (versus negative) emotional
expression tended to improve learners’social perceptions of agents, motivationalstates, e.g.
interest, and learningoutcomes.
1.1 Benefits of pedagogical agents’negative emotional expressions
Extending from existing research advocating expressed positive emotions, this study
proposes that a pedagogical agent’s expressed negative emotions such as anger can benefit
multimedia learning, particularlywhen framed as a feedback cue concerning learning effort
and performance. In the education milieu,teachers and instructors can intentionally display
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