This paper reviews the usage of agent technology for educational use from two perspectives. The first one is the design of educational policies and the second one is the implementation of educational systems. These two have been treated as different areas, however, the agent which is a conceptual model can cover both areas to evaluate their reliability and validity. We also point out that both the setting of the model of agents in educational policies and the meta-analysis conducted in educational systems aim the same goal by different ways.

This article describes the state-of-the-art research on the pedagogical agent technology as a vehicle to advance theories of how people learn. We review different types of pedagogical agents and their roles. In this article, we are particularly interested in an interactive pedagogical agent, called a teachable agent. We provide detailed explanations about different types of teachable agents with some pointers to actual implementations. We discuss how different types of teachable agents works and the advantages and disadvantages of each type. We then discuss how teachable agents help advance learning science research. We introduce SimStudent as an instance of a teachable agent and how it has been used in various research projects. We conclude the article with future research issues.

In programming classes, some novice programming learners cannot complete their coding exercises. This is because they do not have enough debugging technique while many teachers expect the learners can acquire it from their coding exercises. In this research, we have developed a lecture package and a learning support system to teach systematic debugging to novice learners. The lecture package consists of the instruction portion supporting learners to gain the knowledge of systematic debugging and the exercise portion supporting learners to apply the technique in their debugging exercises. In the exercise portion, our learning support system assists them to debug their exercise code based on the correct debugging process that they learned in the instruction portion. Our evaluation confirmed that the lecture package with the learning support system has learning effectiveness for novice learners to gain the knowledge of systematic debugging and to apply the technique in their debugging exercises.

In this research, we examined the effectiveness of promoting the learning of medical treatment by making a flowchart of medical fee calculation rule. As a result of comparing the results of pre-post tests on knowledge and skills regarding the medical fee calculation, at least half of the students’ performance was improved, and a remarkable improvement was recognized particularly in the first scholars. In addition, it was shown that more than 70％ of the students had a positive impression of the flowchart production exercise. These results suggest that the introduction of a medical fee calculation flowchart in medical office classes may be effective in promoting the learning especially in the first scholars.