The importance of a good relationship between teacher and student is no surprise. More surprising is that the "human touch" is so powerful it can improve computer-based learning.

In a series of ingenious yet simple experiments, Rich Mayer and Scott DaPra showed that students learn better from an onscreen slide show when it is accompanied by an onscreen avatar that uses social cues.

Eighty-eight college students watched a 4-minute Powerpoint slide show that explained how a solar cell converts sunlight to electricity. It  consisted of 11 slides and a voice-over explanation.

Some subjects saw an avatar which used a full compliment of social cues (gesturing, changing posture, facial expression, changes in eye gaze, and lip movements synchronized to speech) which were meant to direct student attention to relevant features of the slide show.

Other subjects saw an avatar that maintained the same posture, maintained eye gaze straight ahead, and did not move (except for lip movements synchronized to speech).

A third group saw no avatar at all, but just saw the slides and listened to the narration.

All subjects were later tested with fact-based recall questions and transfer questions (e.g. "how could you increase the electrical output of a solar power?") meant to test subjects ability to apply their knowledge to new situations.

There was no difference among the three groups on the retention test, but there was a sizable advantage (d = .90) for the high embodiment subjects on the transfer test. (The low-embodiment and no-avatar groups did not differ.)

A second experiment showed that the effect was only obtained when a human voice was used; the avatar did not boost learning when synchronized to a machine voice.

The experimenters emphasized the social aspect of the situation to learning; students process the slideshow differently because the avatar is "human enough" for them to treat it prime interaction like those learners would use with a real person. This interpretation seems especially plausible in light of the second experiment; all of the more cognitive cues (e.g., the shifts in the avatar's eye gaze prompting shifts in learner's attention) were still present in the machine-voice condition, yet there was no advantage to learners.

There is something special about learning from another person. Surprisingly, that other person can be an avatar.

Mayer, R. E. & DaPra, C. S. (2012). An embodiment effect in computer-based learning with animated pedagogical agents. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 18,  239-252.

It's not often that an initiative prompts grave concern in some and ridicule in others. The Gates Foundation managed it.

The Foundation has funded a couple of projects to investigate the feasibility of developing a passive measure of student engagement, using galvanic skin response (GSR).

The ridicule comes from an assumption that it won't work.

GSR basically measures how sweaty you are. Two leads are placed on the skin. One emits a very very mild charge. The other measures the charge. The more sweat on your skin, the better it conducts the charge, so the better the second lead will pick up the charge.

Who cares how sweaty your skin is?

Sweat--as well as heart rate, respiration rate and a host of other physiological signs controlled by the peripheral nervous system--vary with your emotional state.

Can you tell whether a student is paying attention from these data? 

It's at least plausible that it could be made to work. There has long been controversy over how separable different emotional states are, based on these sorts of metrics. It strikes me as a tough problem, and we're clearly not there yet, but the idea is far from kooky, and indeed, the people who have been arguing its possible have been making some progress--this lab group says they've successfully distinguished engagement, relaxation and stress. (Admittedly, they gathered a lot more data than just GSR and one measure they collected was EEG, a measure of the central, not peripheral, nervous system.)

The grave concern springs from the possible use to which the device would be put.

A Gates Foundation spokeswoman says the plan is that a teacher would be able to tell, in real time, whether students are paying attention in class. (Earlier the Foundation website indicated that the grant was part of a program meant to evaluate teachers, but that was apparently an error.)

Some have objected that such measurement would be insulting to teachers. After all, can't teachers tell when their students are engaged, or bored, or frustrated, etc.?

I'm sure some can, but not all of them. And it's a good bet that beginning teachers can't make these judgements as accurately as their more experienced colleagues, and beginners are just the ones who need this feedback. Presumably the information provided by the system would be redundant to teachers who can read it by their students faces and body language, and these teachers will simply ignore it.

I would hope that classroom use would be optional--GSR bracelets would enter classrooms only if teachers requested them.

Of greater concern to me are the rights of the students. Passive reading of physiological data without consent feels like an invasion of privacy. Parental consent ought to be obligatory. Then too, what about HIPAA? What is the procedure if a system that measures heartbeat detects an irregularity?

These two concerns--the effect on teachers and the effect on students--strike me as serious, and people with more experience than I have in ethics and in the law will need to think them through with great care.

But I still think the project is a terrific idea, for two reasons, neither of which has received much attention in all the uproar.

First, even if the devices were never used in classrooms, researchers could put them to good use.

I sat in at a meeting a few years ago of researchers considering a grant submission (not to the Gates Foundation) on this precise idea--using peripheral nervous system data as an on-line measure of engagement. (The science involved here is not really in my area of expertise, and had no idea why I was asked to be at the meeting, but that seems to be true of about two-thirds of the meetings I attend.) Our thought was that the device would be used by researchers, not teachers and administrators.

Researchers would love a good measure of engagement because the proponents of new materials or methods so often claim "increased engagement" as a benefit. But how are researchers supposed to know whether or not the claim is true? Teacher or student judgements of engagement are subject to memory loss and to well-known biases.

In addition, I see potentially great value for parents and teachers of kids with disabilities. For example, have a look at these two pictures.

This is my daughter Esprit. She's 9 years old, and she has Edward's syndrome. As a consequence, she has a host of cognitive and physical challenges, e.g., she cannot speak, and she has limited motor control and bad motor tone (she can't sit up unaided).

Esprit can never tell me that she's engaged either with words or signs. But I'm comfortable concluding that she is engaged at moments like that captured in the top photo--she's turning the book over in her hands and staring at it intently.

In the photo at the bottom, even I, her dad, am unsure of what's on her mind. (She looks sleepy, but isn't--ptosis, or drooping upper eyelids, is part of the profile).  If Esprit wore this expression while gazing towards a video for example, I wouldn't be sure whether she was engaged by the video or was spacing out.

Are there moments that I would slap a bracelet on her if I thought it could measure whether or not she was engaged?

You bet your sweet bippy there are. 

I'm not the first to think of using physiologic data to measure engagement in people with disabilities that make it hard to make their interests known. In this article, researchers sought to reduce the communication barriers that exclude children with disabilities from social activities; the kids might be present, but because of their difficulties describing or showing their thoughts, they cannot fully participate in the group.  Researchers reported some success in distinguishing engaged from disengaged states of mind from measures of blood volume pulse, GSR, skin temperature, and respiration in nine young adults with muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy.

I respect the concerns of those who see the potential for abuse in the passive measurement of physiological data. At the same time, I see the potential for real benefit in such a system, wisely deployed.

When we see the potential for abuse, let's quash that possibility, but let's not let it blind us to the possibility of the good that might be done.

And finally, because Esprit didn't look very cute in the pictures above, I end with this picture.

In primary school, a student's relationship with his or her teacher has a significant impact on the student's academic progress. Students with positive relationships are more engaged and learn more (e.g., Hughes et al, 2008). In addition, teachers are more likely to have negative relationships with boys than with girls (e.g., Hamre & Pianta, 2001).

Previous research has not, however, accounted for the gender of the teacher. Perhaps conflict is more likely when teacher and student are of different sexes, and because there are more female than male teachers, we end up concluding that boys tend not to get along with their teachers.

A new study (Split, Koomen & Jak, in press) indicates that's not the case.

This appears to be the first large-scale study that examined teacher-student relationships in primary school while accounting for the sex of teachers.

Teachers completed questionnaires about their relationships with their students. The questionnaires measured three constructs:

• Closeness Warmth and open communication. Sample item "If upset, this child will seek comfort from me."
• Conflict Negative interactions, need for the teacher to correct student behavior. Sample item "This child remains angry or resentful after being disciplined."
• Dependency Clinginess on the part of the student; sample item "This child asks for my help when he or she really does not need help."

All in all, the data did not support the idea that boys connect emotionally  with male teachers.

For Closeness, female teachers generally felt closer to their students than male teachers. Male teachers did not feel closer to either boys or girls, but female teachers felt closer to girls than they did to boys.

For Conflict, female teachers reported less conflict than male teachers did. Both male and female teachers reported less conflict with girls than with boys.

For Dependency, female teachers reported less dependency than male teachers did. There were no differences among boys and girls on this measure.

This research has been difficult to conduct, simply because most groups of teachers don't have enough male teachers in elementary grades to conduct a meaningful analysis. This is just one study, but the results indicate that all teachers--male and female--have a tougher time with boys. More conflictual relationships are reported with boys than with girls, and female teachers report less close relationships with boys.


Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early teacher–child relationships and the  trajectory of children's school outcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72, 625–638.

Hughes, J. N., Luo, W., Kwok, O. M., & Loyd, L. K. (2008). Teacher–student support, effortful engagement, and achievement: A 3-year longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 1–14.

Split, J. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., & Jak, S. (in press) Are boys better off with male and girls with female teachers? A multilevel investigation of measurement invariance and gender match in teacher-student relationship quality. Journal of School Psychology.