The Impact of Avatar Teachers on Student Learning and Engagement in a Virtual Learning Environment for Online STEM Courses

Abstract

Due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a considerable shift to online education. The pandemic prompted many academic institutions to quickly develop virtual courses and improve pre-existing online courses to deal with the drastic increase of online students. However, the process of creating virtual courses remains largely tedious. With technological advancement, institutions can now offer personalized virtual courses for individual students by automating course content creation. Computer-generated course content can be easily customized to meet individual student needs. This study examines the potential problems associated with virtual learning and evaluates the feasibility of employing computer-generated course content. It also analyzes the influence avatar teachers have on student learning and engagement as a first step in determining the impact of computer-generated courses. The study shows that institutions should ensure video lectures are well designed and utilize an appropriate teacher voice. The study reports mixed feedback from an interview study that explores the impact of human and avatar teachers’ physical characteristics on student learning. Some students believed that the avatar teachers were engaging, while some found it distracting. On the other hand, some students did not feel that the teacher’s physical characteristics impacted their learning as long as the course material was delivered well.