Challenging gender stereotypes using virtual pedagogical characters

The paper explores motivational and cognitive effects of more neutral or androgynous-looking characters versus more feminine-looking female and masculine-looking male characters. A user study involving 158 students, aged 17-19, encountering four virtual characters, visually manipulated to represent gender stereotypicality versus androgyny, is presented. On the one hand we explored students’ attitudes towards the different characters as seen in how they rank them as preferred presenters and articulate their arguments about the characters. On the other hand we looked for patterns as to which character(s) influence female and male students most positively with respect to their attitude towards a university level computer engineering program. Results from the study are presented and discussed. We conclude with pointing towards future research within the area