Identifying the effective characteristics of educational agent in learning environments

Over the past two decades, educational agents have been considered to support the learners' needs and facilitate learning in the learning environments. This study aimed to identify the useful and effective characteristics of the educational agent in the learning environment qualitatively through the inductive content analysis. The research population consisted of all faculty members, graduates, and PhD candidates in educational technology at Allāmeh Tabataba'i and Tarbiat Moddares Universities. The research sample consisted of 14 faculty members, graduates, and PhD candidates who were selected through a purposive sampling method. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview. All steps of data collection were conducted through a grounded theory method along with three steps of open, axial, and selective coding. Consequently, four main categories including role, appearance, sound, and gender were identified for the educational agent. In the next stage, the related subcategories were also identified for each main category. To validate the findings, the structural equation modeling was used to confirm the extracted factors and the goodness of fit of the factor model of the educational agent's characteristics was confirmed. Findings suggest paying more attention to the pre-mentioned four components and the related sub-components to design an educational agent in the learning environment.