Title
Learning to Overcome Cultural Conflict through Engaging with Intelligent Agents in Synthetic Cultures
Abstract
Providing opportunities for children to engage with intercultural learning has frequently focused on exposure to the ritual, celebrations and festivals of cultures, with the view that such experiences will result in greater acceptance of cultural differences. Intercultural conflict is often avoided, bringing as it does particular pedagogical, ethical and political dilemmas of which cultures we place in conflict in the multicultural classroom. In this paper we discuss an alternative approach, providing children with an interactive learning experience with synthetic cultures and characters. The agent architecture developed to enable intelligent agents to exhibit culturally appropriate affect and behaviours is outlined. MIXER, an experiential learning application developed for 9–11 year old children on intercultural conflict is described, highlighting the learning goals and approaches. A school-based evaluation of MIXER with 144 UK children is presented. Children demonstrated high levels of comprehension, engagement and enjoyment of MIXER, with MIXER contributing to near and far transfer, supporting children’s cognitive, emotional and behavioural learning and stimulating discussion and debate about how to resolve conflict.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1007/s40593-014-0031-y
I. J. Artificial Intelligence in Education
Keywords
Field
DocType
learning technology,experiential learning,artificial intelligence,human computer interaction
Educational technology,Social psychology,Experiential learning,Interactive Learning,Multicultural education,Knowledge management,Psychology,Intercultural learning,Cultural diversity,Agent architecture,Pedagogy,Cultural conflict
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
25
2
1560-4306
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.61
18
Authors
10
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Lynne Hall125528.87
Sarah Tazzyman2283.89
Colette Hume3182.77
Birgit Endrass421319.14
Meiyii Lim571.39
Gert Jan Hofstede611919.53
Ana Paiva72618287.01
Elisabeth André83634433.65
Arvid Kappas926920.78
Ruth Aylett101377170.50