People often under or over-estimate their performance on interactive learning experiences with virtual agents, especially when it comes to interpersonal skills such as empathy. To generate more accurate self-assessment of performance, we propose the use of in-action reflective learning opportunities during interactive learning experiences with virtual agents. We conducted a user study in which third-year dental students (n=58) participated in an interactive learning experience that required them to demonstrate empathy towards a virtual agent playing the role of a patient. During the interaction, an in-action reflective learning intervention prompted the students to self-assess their performance with regards to empathy. Our results show that students' self-assessment correlates to an assessment performed by outside raters, and that students were significantly more empathetic on a second opportunity to demonstrate empathy to the virtual patient after having performed their reflection.

A reflective practicum is a low-pressure, low-risk learning environment. In a reflective practicum a learner is educated in a professional practice and how to use reflection in the setting of that professional practice. An example of a low-pressure and low-risk learning environment is the use of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in medicine to provide training for interviewing and diagnostic skills. However, such ECA experiences have not been used to teach how to use reflection in the setting of a professional practice. In this paper we present a framework that supports explicit reflective learning for ECA experiences. Using this framework, ECA experiences become a reflective practicum. This framework was applied to an ECA experience called the Neurological Examination Rehearsal Virtual Environment (NERVE), and created a sample experience called the NERVE Reflective Practicum (NERVE-RP). We conducted a user study in which second-year medical students (n = 76) used NERVE-RP and engaged in reflection based on the experience. The results of the user study show that students engage in valuable reflections during the experience including instances of critical reflection.

We have created “You, M.D.”, an interactive museum exhibit in which users learn about topics in public health literacy while interacting with virtual humans. You, M.D. is equipped with a weight sensor, a height sensor and a Microsoft Kinect that gather basic user information. Conceptually, You, M.D. could use this user information to dynamically select the appearance of the virtual humans in the interaction attempting to improve learning outcomes and user perception for each particular user. For this concept to be possible, a better understanding of how different elements of the visual appearance of a virtual human affects user perceptions is required. In this paper, we present the results of an initial user study with a large sample size (n =333) ran using You, M.D. The study measured users’ reactions based on the user’s gender and body-mass index (BMI) when facing virtual humans with BMI either concordant or discordant from the user’s BMI. The results of the study indicate that concordance between the users’ BMI and the virtual human’s BMI affects male and female users differently. The results also show that female users rate virtual humans as more knowledgeable than male users rate the same virtual humans.