The Effects of the Pedagogical Agent’s Instructional Role on Achievement and Motivation among Students with Different Cognitive Styles

This article discusses the findings of a study that elucidated the effects of the pedagogical agent s instructional role towards achievement and motivation among students with different cognitive styles, namely, the field-independent (FI) and the field-dependent (FD) cognitive styles. Two versions of the web-based instruction of a particular course, each with the assistance of a personalised pedagogical agent, namely, one with the Expert Instructional Role (EIR) and another with the Mentor Instructional Role (MIR), were designed and developed to serve the purpose of this study. The participants consisted of 86 fourth year undergraduates from the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia were divided into two groups and each group was assigned to the learning with the assistance of either the pedagogical agent with the EIR or the MIR. An empirical study based on 2 x 2 quasi-experimental designs was deployed. A comparative analysis was conducted using the independent-samples t-test procedure. Taking the students as a whole, the results revealed that students who were assisted by the MIR agent performed significantly better compared to those who were assisted by the EIR agent, both in terms of achievement and motivation. Among the FI students, the results showed that there was no significant difference in terms of the achievement between students using the pedagogical agent with either the EIR or the MIR. However, there was a significant difference in terms of motivation between the students, with a higher mean motivation score for students using the pedagogical agent with the MIR. Among the FD students, the results showed that there was a significant difference both in terms of the achievement and motivation between students using the pedagogical agent with either the EIR or the MIR, with higher means for students using the pedagogical agent with the MIR. This study infers that the pedagogical agent with the MIR was more useful compared to the pedagogical agent with the EIR in that the former was able to enhance the motivation among both the FI and FD students more effectively. The pedagogical agent with the MIR was also able to increase the achievement among the FD students better than the pedagogical agent with the EIR, but not among the FI students.