Motivational virtual agent in e-learning: the roles of regulatory focus and message framing

The impact of monetary incentives and regulatory focus on worker productivity and learning in order picking

Purpose

In manual order picking systems, temporary workers are often employed to handle demand peaks. While this increases flexibility, it may hamper productivity, as they are usually unfamiliar with the processes and may have little experience. It is important for managers to understand how quickly inexperienced workers arrive at full productivity and which factors support workers in improving their productivity. This paper aims to investigate how learning improves the performance of order pickers, and how their regulatory focus (RF) and monetary incentives, as management actions, influence learning.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected in two case studies in controlled field-lab experiments and statistically analysed. This allowed evaluating the validity of hypotheses through an ANOVA, the calculation of correlation coefficients and the application of regression models.

Findings

A monetary incentive based on total order picking time and pick errors has a positive influence on order picking time, but not on pick quality. The incentive influences initial productivity, but not the learning rate. A dominant promotion-oriented RF increases the effect of the incentive on initial productivity, but it does not impact worker learning.

Practical implications

This study contributes to behavioral and human-focused order picking management and supports managers in setting up work plans and developing incentive systems for learning and productivity enhancement, considering worker RF.

Originality/value

This work is among the few to empirically investigate the effect of monetary incentives on learning in interaction with RF. It is the first study to investigate these concepts in an order picking scenario.

Can an angry pedagogical agent enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment?

Purpose

This study aims to examine if a pedagogical agent’s expressed anger, when framed as a feedback cue, can enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment than expressed happiness.

Design/methodology/approach

A between-subjects experiment was conducted in which learners engaged with a multimedia learning material that taught programming algorithms, featuring a pedagogical agent who expressed anger or happiness as a feedback cue in response to the learners’ prior performance. Learners completed a self-reported scale and post-test for measuring mental effort and learning performance, respectively.

Findings

Female learners reported higher mental effort and had better learning performance when the pedagogical agent expressed anger than happiness. Male learners reported marginally lower mental effort when the pedagogical agent expressed anger than happiness.

Originality/value

This study focuses on a pedagogical agent’s expressed emotion as social information to learners. Extending from research advocating a pedagogical agent’s positive emotional expression, this study highlights the potential benefits of a pedagogical agent’s negative emotional expression, such as anger, as a cue for learners to enhance learning effort and performance in a multimedia learning environment.

E-Learning in the Teaching of Mathematics: An Educational Experience in Adult High School

Currently, the e-learning method, due to the period of confinement that is occurring due to COVID-19, has increased its use and application in the teaching and learning processes. The main objective of this research is to identify the effectiveness of the e-learning method in the teaching of mathematics with adults who are in high school, in contrast to the traditional expository method. The study developed is quantitative, descriptive and correlational. The research design is quasi-experimental, with a control group and an experimental group. The results show that the use of the e-learning method has a positive influence on motivation, autonomy, participation, mathematical concepts, results and grades. It can be concluded that the e-learning method leads to improvement in adult students who are studying the mathematical subject in the educational stage of high school, provided that it is compared with the expository method. Therefore, this method is considered effective for its implementation in adults.