Pedagogical Conversational Agents in Virtual Worlds

Abstract

Pedagogical conversational agents (PCAs) in virtual worlds are increasingly used in the field of education. This is evidenced by the trend of increased publications in this area. This systematic literature review examines research contributions that study the implementation of PCAs in virtual worlds to promote learning in higher and further education. We exploratively identify the following design categories: Embodiment and character, the PCA's adaptation to learners’ feelings and their role as mentors, the application of gamification, communication technologies, privacy, and the existence of design knowledge. We reduced the 668 articles found to 45 coded articles. From the results of our research foci, we derived future research streams. The results show research gaps in privacy, the existence of design principles, and more advanced communication technologies. Finally, we conclude that the potential of using PCAs in virtual worlds has not yet been exploited and should be investigated more structured and more deeply.