Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games
Avatar research has almost exclusively explored avatars that remain the same regardless of context. However, there may be advantages to avatars that change during use. A plethora of work has shown that avatars personalized in one’s likeness increases identification, while object-like avatars increa...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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ETC Press
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112919 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7732-6258 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-2201 |
| _version_ | 1826216833586298880 |
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| author | Kao, Dominic Harrell Jr, Douglas Alan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Kao, Dominic Harrell Jr, Douglas Alan |
| author_sort | Kao, Dominic |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Avatar research has almost exclusively explored avatars that remain the
same regardless of context. However, there may be advantages to avatars that change during use. A plethora of work has shown that avatars personalized in one’s likeness increases identification, while object-like avatars increase detachment. We posit that in certain situations within a game it may be more advantageous to have increased identification, while in other situations increased detachment. We present a study on dynamic avatars, or avatars that change types based on game context. In particular, we investigate what we term the successful likeness avatar. The successful likeness is an avatar that is only a likeness when the player is in a win state and at all other times an object. Our goal is to determine if this type of avatar can foster an increase in user performance and engagement. Our experiment (N=997) compares four avatars: 1) Shape, 2) Likeness, 3) Likeness to Shape, and 4) Shape to Likeness (successful likeness). We found that players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly better performance (levels completed) than all other conditions. Players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly higher play time (minutes played) than all other conditions. We propose a theoretical model in which identification facilitates vicarious outcomes and in which detachment facilitates outcome dissociation. As performance and engagement are correlated to learning (Harteveld, 2015), successful likeness avatars may be crucial in educational games. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/112919 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:53:51Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | ETC Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1129192022-10-03T09:01:33Z Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games Kao, Dominic Harrell Jr, Douglas Alan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Kao, Dominic Kao, Dominic Harrell Jr, Douglas Alan Avatar research has almost exclusively explored avatars that remain the same regardless of context. However, there may be advantages to avatars that change during use. A plethora of work has shown that avatars personalized in one’s likeness increases identification, while object-like avatars increase detachment. We posit that in certain situations within a game it may be more advantageous to have increased identification, while in other situations increased detachment. We present a study on dynamic avatars, or avatars that change types based on game context. In particular, we investigate what we term the successful likeness avatar. The successful likeness is an avatar that is only a likeness when the player is in a win state and at all other times an object. Our goal is to determine if this type of avatar can foster an increase in user performance and engagement. Our experiment (N=997) compares four avatars: 1) Shape, 2) Likeness, 3) Likeness to Shape, and 4) Shape to Likeness (successful likeness). We found that players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly better performance (levels completed) than all other conditions. Players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly higher play time (minutes played) than all other conditions. We propose a theoretical model in which identification facilitates vicarious outcomes and in which detachment facilitates outcome dissociation. As performance and engagement are correlated to learning (Harteveld, 2015), successful likeness avatars may be crucial in educational games. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (STEM+C Grant 1542970) Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Fellowship) 2017-12-21T14:52:04Z 2017-12-21T14:52:04Z 2016-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 2164-6651 2164-666X http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112919 Kao, Dominic and D. Fox Harrell. "Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatars on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games." GLS Conference Proceedings 2017, ETC Press, 2017. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7732-6258 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-2201 en_US http://press.etc.cmu.edu/files/GLS12-Proceedings-2016-web.pdf Games + Learning + Society Conference Proceedings 2017 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf ETC Press Kao |
| spellingShingle | Kao, Dominic Harrell Jr, Douglas Alan Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title | Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title_full | Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title_fullStr | Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title_short | Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games |
| title_sort | exploring the effects of dynamic avatar on performance and engagement in educational games |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112919 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7732-6258 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-2201 |
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