Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Avatars on Learner's e-Learning Performance : Emphasis on Trust Transference between Avatars and Contents

In the recent e-learning environment, avatars are often used to help learners get familiar with the contents, which is ultimately to motivate them to study more. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether avatars have actually the desirable effect on users of e-learning materials. Surprisingly, however, no extensive study has been conducted on this crucial issue Accordingly, main objectives this study are summarized as follows. First, we need to gain better understanding of how much learners' trust towards avatars (termed as "avatar trust") is transferred to learners' trust towards e-learning contents (termed as "contents trust"). Second, we need to investigate how much learners' personal relationships with avatars as well as learning behaviors change depending on avatar types (attractive vs. professional) and contents complexity (easy vs. difficult). As described in the study objectives, in order for us to analyze empirical data more systematically, we classified avatar types into two: "attractive" and "professional;" the contents are categorized as either "easy" or "difficult." Therefore, it is essential for this study to build a prototype e-learning website on which our research purpose can be realized and tested effectively with proper avatar types and e-learning contents. For this purpose, we built a prototype e-learning website, in which avatars are invited from currently working avatar instructors used in real-world e-learning websites, and e-learning contents are adapted from real-world contents about Java programming topic, which have been proved to have shown high quality and reliability. Our research method includes questionnaire survey by inviting a number of valid respondents comprised of office workers who are believed to have high demands for the e-learning contents as well as those who have previous experience with avatar instructors. Respondents were given one of the four e-learning experiment conditions (2 avatar types x 2 contents types) on a random basis. Each experimental e-learning condition is framed to have the same quality but different avatar type and content complexity. Then the respondents are asked to fill out the survey form which has questions about avatar trust, contents trust, personal relationships with avatar, and learning behavior, among others. Regarding the constructs used in research model, we based them rigorously on previous studies. For example, we used six constructs such as behavior to give information (BGI), behavior to obtain information (BOI), need for inclusion wanted, need for control wanted, contents trust, and avatar trust. To measure them, 7-Likert scales were used in the questionnaire. E-learning performance was measured indirectly through two constructs such as BGI and BOI. Six constructs used in the research model were adopted and revised from the FIRO-B model suggested by Schutz. Empirical results are as follows: First, professional avatars are more effective for difficult contents, while attractive avatars were not as effective for easy contents. Second, our study results ascertained that avatar trust transfers to contents trust regardless of avatar types and contents complexity.

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