Using affective embodied agents in information literacy education

This study aims to evaluate the impact of affective embodied agents (EAs) on students´ learning performance in an online tutorial that teaches academic information seeking skills. A hundred and twenty tertiary students from two major universities participated in the between-subjects experiment. The results suggested that the use of affective EAs significantly increased students´ learning motivation and enjoyment, compared to neutral-EAs or text-only conditions. However, there were no significant differences in knowledge retention between the three groups. This study paves the way for a better understanding of embedding affective EAs in online information literacy (IL) education. Furthermore, the improvement in students´ learning motivation and enjoyment can serve as a basis for future research in this context.