Motivation effect of animated pedagogical agent's personality and feedback strategy types on learning in virtual training environment

The personality and feedback of an animated pedagogical agent (APA) are vital social-emotional features that render the agent perceptually believable. Their effects on learning during virtual training need to be examined. In this paper, an explanation model is proposed to clarify the underlying mechanism of how these two features affect learners. Two studies were conducted to investigate the model. In Study 1, the effect of the APA's personality type and feedback strategy on flow experience and performance was reexamined, revealing significant effects of the feedback strategy on flow and performance and a marginally significant effect of the personality type on performance. To explore the mechanism behind these effects, a theoretical model is proposed by distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation effects. In Study 2, the model was evaluated, and the APA's personality type was found to significantly influence the factors in the path of the extrinsic motivation effect rather than those in the path of the intrinsic motivation effect. In contrast, the feedback strategy affected factors in the path of the intrinsic motivation effect. These results validated the proposed model. Further distinguishing the two motivation effects is necessary to understand the respective effects of an APA's personality and feedback features on learning experiences and outcomes.