An exploratory study of customisable avatars for collaborative learning

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) research has shown that avatars influence user behaviours in both video game and social media environments. This study aims to investigate customisable avatars used in a spontaneous doctoral community on Reddit (a social media and discussion website) and identify avatar characteristics that may facilitate collaborative learning through text mining and crowd-sourced data coding. As a work in progress, the research questions and methods for Reddit data collection and analysis will be presented to get feedback from other ISLS members in the New Members Session at ISLS Annual Meeting 2022. The findings from this study would be applied to improve the design of Tuvatar.com (an avatar-mediated small group learning environment) which will be presented in the main poster session at the CSCL conference 2022.