Examining gender differences when using avatars for educational games

Avatars act as digital representations of players or non-playing characters in games and other online environments, and also play a key role key in educational games. This study looks at gender differences that may impact on human avatar interactions, exploring the impact of player gender differences and avatar gender differences that might impact on acceptance of game technology for education. We also consider gender preferences for avatars across a range of subject areas. We survey 332 participants and examine general acceptance of educational games using the UTAUT framework. We find both males (n=202) and females (n=131) rank performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and hedonic motivation, along with their behavioural intention to use the technology favourably, although female rankings on all scales are significantly lower than male ratings. This suggests that females are less confident in adopting game technology than males for use in education. Participants also ranked a series of 5 male and 5 female avatars on how well they might be applied to various educational domains. In most cases, the male and female participants rank avatars consistently, although there are a few exceptions. Most evident is the way the female avatars and male avatars are ranked for use in educational games, indicating clear preferences by users for how avatar gender should be selected. The survey also identifies potential benefits and issues associated with using avatars in educational games.