A scoping review of embodied conversational agents in education: trends and innovations from 2014 to 2024

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) have given rise to newly sophisticated embodied conversational agents (ECAs). This study used a scoping review approach to explore the trends and innovations in ECAs in education. Our research included 32 publications and revealed major regions or countries conducting related studies, hotspots, and frontiers in this topic. Furthermore, we investigated the following issues in our research: (1) the effectiveness of ECAs for learning; (2) the advantages of ECAs over non-embodied agents; (3) the educational potential of ECAs in virtual environments; (4) the perceived trust of ECAs; (5) the preferences for ECAs and ECAs’ effectiveness across different groups; (6) the ethical aspects of ECAs related to education; (7) how to enhance the design of ECAs for learning; (8) current research gaps and shortcomings on ECAs in education.