Tutor vs. Teammate - Exploring Pedagogical Conversational Agents in a Serious Game for Entrepreneurship Education

Serious games are an innovative approach to entrepreneurship education and enable practicing skills like critical thinking. Pedagogical conversational agents (PCAs) enable individual support for learners in serious games. However, research lacks comparative studies on their added value in serious games, and there is no consensus regarding which PCA role learners prefer. We explored the value and design of a PCA in a serious game for business model adaptation following design science research. We first evaluated it in playtests, focus groups, and a survey (n = 12). Then, we manipulated the PCA in two different roles (tutor or teammate) and quantitatively assessed its added value for the serious game (n = 90). Our results show that the PCA significantly influences students’ motivation and that learners prefer the tutor role. Our paper advances entrepreneurship education by exploring an innovative learning method and adds new findings to PCAs in serious games.