Educational Research Review 6 (2011) 27–54 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Educational Research Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/EDUREV Review Do pedagogical agents make a difference to student motivation and learning? Steffi Heidig a,∗ , Geraldine Clarebout b,1 a née Domagk, University of Erfurt, Learning and New Media, P.O. Box 900 221, 99105 Erfurt, Germany b Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Vesaliusstraat 2, Box 3770, 3000 Leuven, Belgium article info Article history: Received 25 February 2009 Received in revised form 20 July 2010 Accepted 27 July 2010 Keywords: Pedagogical agents Animated agents Multimedia learning environments Motivation Learning abstract Pedagogical agents, characters that guide through multimedia learning environments, recently gained increasing interest. A review was published by Clarebout, Elen, Johnson and Shaw in 2002 where a lot of promises were made, but research on the motivational and learning effects of pedagogical agents was scarce. More than 70 articles on pedagogi- cal agents have been published since, and 26 of them examine motivational and learning effects. We map out this research in order to answer three main questions: Do pedagogical agents facilitate learner motivation and learning? Under what conditions are they effective? How should they be designed? The review reveals that various studies have not investigated the first two fundamental questions due to a lack of control groups. As research on peda- gogical agents is highly complex, we propose a multi-level framework to enable systematic comparisons between different studies and the identification of gaps in the literature. This framework can be further applied to conceptualize and situate future studies. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Result of the previous review ...................................................................................................... 28 2. Aims of the presented review ...................................................................................................... 29 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 29 4. Do pedagogical agents facilitate learner motivation and learning? ............................................................... 30 5. Under what conditions do pedagogical agents facilitate learner motivation and learning outcomes? ........................... 42 5.1. Pedagogical Agents-Conditions of Use Model (PACU) ...................................................................... 42 5.2. Under what conditions do pedagogical agents facilitate learner motivation and learning outcomes? —Empirical evidence ......................................................................................................... 42 6. How should pedagogical agents be designed to foster learner motivation and learning outcomes? ............................. 44 6.1. How should pedagogical agents be designed?-The learning environment ................................................ 44 6.1.1. The learning environment—empirical evidence .................................................................. 44 6.2. How should pedagogical agents be designed? – Learner characteristics .................................................. 45 6.2.1. Learner characteristics—empirical evidence ...................................................................... 45 6.3. How should pedagogical agents be designed? – Functions of the pedagogical agent ..................................... 46 6.3.1. Functions of the pedagogical agent—empirical evidence ......................................................... 46 6.4. How should pedagogical agents be designed? – Design of the pedagogical agent ........................................ 47 6.4.1. Global design level: human vs. non-human characters and static vs. animated ................................. 47 ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 361 737 2753; fax: +49 361 737 2759. E-mail addresses: steffi.domagk@uni-erfurt.de (S. Heidig), geraldine.clarebout@ped.kuleuven.be (G. Clarebout). 1 Tel.: +32 16 325718; fax: +32 16 326274. 1747-938X/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2010.07.004