| An increasing number of older workers, specifically middle-aged workers between 50 and 60 years of age, are staying in the workforce. Implicit stereotyping of middle-aged workers on aging may cause the formation of erroneous judgments about ability to learn new things compared to younger adults, resulting in a lack of performance or hesitation to learn new skills or training to learn them. Recent successes with the use of animated pedagogical agents in creating a social connection and changing attitudes might influence perceived ability to complete tasks successfully ("I can do it"). However, it is not clear what effect a fully embodied pedagogical agent (FEPA) with human-like gestures, facial expression, eye gaze, human voice, and body movements will have on the self-efficacy of middle-aged workers when engaged in a work-related learning task that requires the acquisition of new knowledge. A quantitative, experimental, pretest-posttest control-group design with two groups was conducted with a sample (N = 68) from a private medical school in the Southwest United States. An independent samples t test found no difference between groups on the gain scores. A general linear model repeated measures found no interaction between gender and age on pretest and posttest scores. A paired samples t test showed significance in gains between pre- and posttest; however, this was an expected result that validated the instructional module. No difference in gain scores may have occurred because both conditions used a human voice. No effect within and between subjects on gender and age may indicate that middle-aged learners compared to young adults are less influenced by the gender of a FEPA. Also, no difference between groups on the gain scores may indicate that human voice alone might be effective for supporting positive affective outcomes. Further research using a no FEPA, no voice condition may yield results to affirm the notion that human voice alone may be as effective as both FEPA and voice. |
