Adapting Emotional Support in Teams: Quality of Contribution, Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness

Abstract

Teamwork is widely used in higher education for its learning benefits, but students often face issues while working in teams. A peer assessment tool can detect such issues and simultaneously provide support: this could be done by adding a virtual agent throughout the survey, but what should this agent say? This research describes two studies to inform the design of such an agent. We investigate the adaptation of support statements to a student filling in a peer assessment tool. This adaptation is based on the rater’s Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness, and the score assigned to a teammate’s quality of contribution. This adaptation is summarized in an algorithm for a peer assessment tool.