Abstract
Abstract Empathy has great impact in interaction of interpersonal relationship. It makes people feel that there is someone who understands and cares about them. In Human - Computer Interaction, the theory and documents of considering Computer as Social Actors suppose that the empathy of agents can affect learning condition, including the rise in learning motivation and then improve students’ learning performance. Especially for those under-achievers who need more attention, empathy can improve their learning performance remarkably. This research uses the 2×2 experimental design. There are two independent variables in the research. The first one is whether agents have empathy or not. Another variable is the category of students (average students and under-achievers). The dependent variables are learning performance, learning outcomes and subjective feelings of students. The research task is learning mathematical concepts. The contents are part of the teaching materials in math subject of senior high school students in second grades. The results show that agents with empathy can increase the willingness of reviewing teaching materials for the average and underachieved students. And the students’ subjective feelings of caring, liking and attracting rates for agents with empathy are much higher. What’s more, those agents can improve students’ perception in motivation of learning, willingness, outcome, difficult level and self-efficacy. In order not to disappoint the agents, students would try harder which also makes the integral perception much positive. Besides, the effects of agents with empathy for the under-achievers is higher than the average students in four parts: time of learning, willingness of solving complicated problems, performance in terms of memory and comprehension. The results of this research suggest that if we expect under-achievers to spend time and efforts in learning, then we should design empathic agents in the learning system in an attempt to make students learn more effectively. If students of the learning system are diversify, the use of empathy agents in system will be benefit in terms of their perception and performance.