British Journal of Educational Technology最新文献

Social presence has been hypothesized to facilitate successful learning in digital and online learning environments. Instructor presence in instructional videos is suggested to enhance learners' social presence. However, research is still relatively rare regarding the elementary school learner population. The current experimental study investigated whether embedding an animated human-like artificial pedagogical agent in an instructional video compared to having only a voice could evoke a sense of social presence and improve learning in a sample of primary school learners. The study confirmed that a sense of social presence of a virtual instructor can be fostered through a digital animated pedagogical agent; however, there was no effect on learning performance, nor did social presence mediate a relationship between learning with a pedagogical agent and learning performance.

Li, X., Lan, Y.-J., Pi, Z., Qi, G. Y., Grant, S., & Sun, J. (2025). Pedagogical agent positioning in external videos improves English academic presentation proficiency in desktop virtual reality settings. British Journal of Educational Technology, 56, 1507–1529. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13531

The third author's affiliation was incorrect. It should have been:

Xiaofei Li¹ | Yu- Ju Lan² | Zhongling Pi¹ | Grace Yue Qi³ | Scott Grant⁴ | Jinmei Sun⁵

¹Faculty of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China

²Department of Chinese as a Second Language, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

³ School of Humanities, Media and Creative communication, Massey University, New Zealand

⁴Chinese at the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

⁵Research Center for AI and STEM Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China

We apologise for the error.

Among the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, speaking is particularly challenging for foreign language learners due to the lack of practice contexts. Owing to the popularity of mobile devices and wireless networks, the mobile video-based learning (MVBL) approach, which delivers instructional content via mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets), has been recognized as an effective method to enhance spoken language proficiency in the target language. To motivate learners and to facilitate meaningful spoken Japanese practice, this study proposed an MVBL approach which enables students to leverage mobile technology for foreign language presentation by structuring learning content through student-produced mobile videos (SPMV). This approach connects the learning process to real-life contexts to create a multisensory and engaging educational experience. To assess the efficacy of the proposed methodology, a quasi-experimental teaching approach was implemented in a Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) conversation course in the Department of Japanese Language at a university in Taiwan. Participants were two classes of first-year university students. One class constituted the experimental group (N = 34), which practised speaking training using the SPMV-based learning approach, while the other class constituted the control group (N = 31), which practised using the conventional MVBL approach. The results showed that the SPMV approach led to improvement in the Japanese oral performance of the experimental group, which performed significantly better than the control group in terms of oral performance, group self-efficacy and satisfaction with the learning mode. It is recommended that second or foreign language teachers adopt the SPMV-based learning approach. The findings can be a reference for teachers wishing to utilize this approach in the context of second/ foreign language education.

Generative AI (GenAI) promises to reshape education, yet, beyond gains in efficiency and scalability, crucial questions remain regarding its deeper cognitive, epistemic, socio-emotional and ethical implications for learners. This special section collects emerging empirical evidence from diverse educational settings to examine how interactions with advanced GenAI systems—ranging from intelligent tutors and conversational agents to AI-generated feedback providers—shape learners' cognitive engagement, epistemic agency, metacognitive regulation and emotional relationships with technology. While studies reveal evidence of positive effects in personalised guidance, collaborative inquiry and enhanced self-reflection, findings also highlight risks such as diminished epistemic vigilance, superficial learning and emotional dependence on AI interlocutors. These insights advocate for an educational re-imagining that actively experiments with novel AI technologies while continuously gathering and critically evaluating evidence—envisioning education not merely as a spectrum ranging from fully human- or AI-led activities but also as genuinely collaborative endeavours that balance human intelligence and AI capabilities in meaningful and ethically grounded partnerships. Looking ahead, in this editorial, we propose an interdisciplinary research roadmap that urges deeper examination of the cognitive and neural consequences associated with sustained AI exposure, together with the development of comprehensive frameworks to cultivate AI literacy and evaluative judgement. It also encourages rigorous assessment of the long-term ethical implications of increasingly blurred human-AI boundaries. Ultimately, advancing education in GenAI-infused contexts requires proactive engagement with these emerging complexities, so that teachers and learners not only survive in an AI-infused future but also creatively, critically and ethically co-author it.

Large language model (LLM)-based conversational agents (CAs), with their advanced generative capabilities and human-like conversational interfaces, can serve as reading partners for children during dialogic reading and have shown promise in enhancing children's comprehension and conversational skills. However, there is limited research on the efficacy of LLM-based bilingual CAs in children's language acquisition in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. This randomized controlled trial study investigated the effectiveness of LLM-powered CAs compared with traditional parent–child shared reading in promoting engagement and improving learning outcomes among children with EFL. An interactive e-book featuring a LLM-powered CA was developed to engage children in dialogic reading through questioning and scaffolding. Sixty-seven children, aged 5 to 8, were randomly assigned to either an experimental (AI-led) group or a control (parent-led) group. The study found that children in the experimental group outperformed the control group in reading comprehension, with comparable benefits in vocabulary acquisition and story retelling, both immediately and in delayed tests. In the meantime, this study unpacks children's different engagement patterns when reading with the CA versus reading with their parents. Children reading with the CA demonstrated higher behavioural engagement and visual attention, while those in the parent-led group showed greater affective engagement and narrative-relevant vocalizations. The findings highlighted insights into the potential of LLM-powered CAs in children's language acquisition and suggested key design implications for developing better CAs for children from multilingual backgrounds.