Preschoolers’ Understanding of a Teachable Agent-Based Game in Early Mathematics as Reflected in their Gaze Behaviors – an Experimental Study

The purpose of the study is to investigate how kindergarten children process and understand critical information given in the Magical Garden game. Magical Garden is an educational game developed for mathematical primary education. The game involves a teachable agent who adapts their behaviour to the player, but who is also programmed to help the player progress in the game. The study investigated the children’s behaviour while they played Magical Garden to find out if the children (1) processed the information intended to support the development of numeracy, and (2) showed an understanding of the teachable agent as an entity with agency. The researchers wanted to investigate the children’s cognitive processing and understanding by revealing what was behind their obvious behaviour while playing. Among other things, this was done by recording the children’s gaze behaviours.

The results of the study showed that there is a clear link between specific eye movements and children’s progress in the game. The study also showed that the children focused more on the teachable agent after it had controlled the course of the game for a while. The results show that some of the children understand that the teachable agent already possesses given knowledge, and that this is not the same as the children’s own knowledge. The findings are important for further developing the technology in a way that can provide individual feedback and learning support to children.

The study focuses on 36 children between the ages of four and six. The participants were from three different kindergartens in Sweden. The children got to play Magical Garden for three weeks before data collection began. Eye tracking was used to track the gaze of the children when playing the game. This took place during five separate sessions for each child. The gaming sessions were also observed. 

Gulz, A., Londos, L. & Haake, M. (2020). “Preschoolers’ Understanding of a Teachable Agent-Based Game in Early Mathematics as Reflected in their Gaze Behaviors – an Experimental Study”. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 30:38-73.