Take the Initiative: Mixed Initiative Dialogue Policies for Pedagogical Agents in Game-Based Learning Environments

Pedagogical agents have been shown to be highly effective for supporting learning in a broad range of contexts, including game-based learning. However, there are key open questions around how to design dialogue policies for pedagogical agents that support students in game-based learning environments. This paper reports on a study to investigate two different agent dialogue policies with regard to conversational initiative, a core consideration in dialogue system design. In the User Initiative policy, only the student could initiate conversations with the agent, while in the Mixed Initiative policy, both the agent and the student could initiate conversations. In a study with 67 college students, results showed that the Mixed Initiative policy not only promoted more conversation, but also better supported the goals of the game-based learning environment by fostering exploration, yielding better performance on in-game assessments, and creating higher student engagement.