Match students' gender with their learning companions in adaptive learning programs to promote engagement and prevent disengagement¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The review recommends assigning learning-companion agents whose gender matches the student's. It reports that female learning companions influenced female students' agentic engagement more, and that girls engaged in more frequent quick guessing when a male character was assigned. As the review puts it, "matching the students’ gender with their learning companions in adaptive learning programs could also be a viable strategy to promote student engagement and to prevent disengagement." The strategy addresses conditions under which social-interaction affordances interact with learner characteristics.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Adaptive platform must include affective learning companions or pedagogical agents whose gender can be assigned or selected

Constraints¶

• The review notes this outlines conditions when social interaction affordances interact with learner characteristics and preferences, so effects depend on learner characteristics

Target Learners¶

• Students using adaptive learning platforms with pedagogical agents, including primary-school children

Target Learning Goals¶

• Sustaining behavioral, agentic and affective engagement and preventing disengagement such as quick guessing

Related Strategies¶

• Cluster-specific engagement and personalization strategies for the six learner profiles

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Patricia D. Simon, Lily Min Zeng, Luke K. Fryer. (2026). A systematic review of student engagement research in adaptive learning platforms. Computers and Education Open. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2026.100360