ISSN: 2469-9837
Agina AM* , Kommers PA and Heylen Z
Problem: Despite the massive body of research on users' interaction, the literature still lacks investigating the effect of the computer's- vs. teacher's presence and voice on young user's interaction behavioral development during progression. Purpose: Exploring the effect of the computer's- vs. teacher's presence and voice on young user's interaction behavioral development during progression. Methods: Two types of interactional units (nonverbal vs. verbal encouragement cues) were applied and investigated by forty preschool young users. The participants were divided by their teachers between the two conditions equivalently. It was hypothesized that young users who acted alone with computer were more interacted with the environment than those who acted with their teacher. Findings: First, the hypothesis was confirmed with no significant differential effect of the gender on the task performance. Second, the injudicious use of encouragement cues hindered the participants’ interaction behavioral development. Third, the elicitation of the compulsory-Interaction, undesirable-interaction, inner-interaction, and spontaneous-Interaction were fully different in their mechanisms. Conclusions: The computer’s presence and voice promotes more young users' interaction than the effect of the teacher’s presence and voice where each single type of interaction has different mechanism and evaluation.