Empathetic Pedagogical Agent: Mitigating Harmful Effects of Negative Feedback Through Self-Disclosure

Negative feedback can have detrimental effects on the students’ self-efficacy and learning experience, yet it is inevitable for students who receive low outcomes and need improvement. This study investigates the role of pedagogical agents’ self-disclosure in providing empathy for negative feedback. An online experiment was conducted asking participants (N = 183) to interact with a voice-based pedagogical agent in a between-subjects design: 2 (feedback: positive vs. negative) X 2 (agent: self-disclose vs. non-disclose). The agent instructed students on online learning tasks and provided feedback on their task performance. Our findings showed that the agent’s self-disclosure significantly increased students’ perception of intimacy and cognitive trust toward the agent. A significant interaction effect was observed in intimacy, suggesting that the role of self-disclosure is especially pronounced when negative feedback is provided. A significant mediation effect of cognitive trust was also found between self-disclosure and feedback acceptance.