Effect of Internal and External Characteristics of Web-Based Pedagogical Agents on Quran Reading Skill of Fourth-Grade Elementary Students

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of internal and external characteristics of web-based pedagogical agents on Quran reading skill of fourth grade elementary students. The study was conducted in two qualitative and quantitative sections. In the qualitative part, using content analysis method, the internal and external characteristics of web-based pedagogical agents were extracted from relevant research and resources, and were approved by experts in the form of a model. Then, to investigate the effect of these characteristics on students' learning, a quasi-experimental method was used with one experimental (36) and two control groups (control 1: 34 and control 2: 35 students). The population of the study consisted of all fourth-grade elementary students of Tehran, from which 105 students out of four schools were selected using convenience sampling procedure and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The research instrument and materials consisted of instructional multimedia of Quran recitation with the same content but with different patterns of pedagogical agents as well as learning tests. Data analysis was done using ANOVA.  Results of the study indicated that the experimental group had higher mean scores than the control group(1) and the control group(1) was more knowledgeable than the control group(2) (p <0.05). Therefore, using pedagogical agents with internal (instructional methods, the role of the instructional agent) and the external (verbal, visual) characteristics in the content of web-based multimedia content coruse increases in learning.