Engaging learning groups using Social Interaction Strategies

Conversational Agents have been shown to be effective tutors in a wide range of educational domains. However, these agents are often ignored and abused in collaborative learning scenarios involving multiple students. In our work presented here, we design and evaluate interaction strategies motivated from prior research in small group communication. We will discuss how such strategies can be implemented in agents. As a first step towards evaluating agents that can interact socially, we report results showing that human tutors employing these strategies are able to cover more concepts with the students besides being rated as better integrated, likeable and friendlier.