Examining Teenagers’ Perceptions of Conversational Agents in Learning Settings
Open accessAbstract
Conversational agents (CAs) have gained increasing presence in learning settings. Researchers have explored perceptions of CAs among children and adults, but rarely among teenagers. Understanding how teenagers conceptualize CAs contributes to designing systems to facilitate productive learning for this population. In this study, we surveyed 73 participants in two age groups (30 participants aged 12-13; 43 participants aged 14-15) about their perceptions of a text-based agent’s competence, trustworthiness, and sociability. We asked participants to describe in writing their ideal CAs that incorporate modalities beyond text, such as sound and gesture. We found that younger participants generally viewed the prototype agent as more competent, trustworthy, and sociable. This group more frequently related the agent designs to curricular contexts, while the older group referenced experiences with virtual assistants to desire broad-domain competence. Findings illuminate considerations of experiences in designing CAs’ interactivity and narratives.
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There is evidence pointing to youth preference towards interaction with CAs using speech and auditory channels beyond text.
“there is evidence pointing to youth preference towards an interaction with CAs using speech and auditory channels beyond text48”
From Use of automated conversational agents in improving young population mental health: a scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as [48]
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Cited by
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Namvarpour, M. (., Brofsky, B., Medina, J. Y., Akter, M., & Razi, A. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790597 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
- Authors
- Nguyen, H.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Nguyen, Ha
- ORCID
- Nguyen, Ha
- Venue
- Interaction Design and Children
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2022-06-27
- Pages
- 374-381
- OpenAlex
- W4283452397
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 6.75
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Keywords
- chatbots, adolescents, adolescents' perceptions, agent competence, trustworthiness, sociability, age differences, multimodal agents, virtual assistants, agent design, learning agents
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