The 5th International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society

With the recent rise in use of three-dimensional virtual worlds for education come research questions related to collaboration and social interaction in the online classroom. In these virtual environments students use avatars, which are realistic characters, to represent their physical selves. Avatars take the shape of human, animal, robot, or any other type of form that the student can create or acquire from online sources. Previous studies on avatars in virtual worlds have found that there exist prejudices in willingness to collaborate with avatars that differ from users in respect to ethnicity, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features. Other studies, investigating choice of avatar for self-representation, have found that users tend to choose avatars that reflect their own physical and ethnic background. In order to understand the impact of age and gender on the selection of avatars for self-representation in virtual worlds, this study was undertaken. Several significant outcomes were found, including differences in both age and gender, with respect to reason for choosing and the specific selection of human and non-human avatar forms. In addition, significant differences were found in prior use of collaborative virtual environments and online role-playing game, related to both age and gender, which could influence the choice of avatars for self-representation in virtual worlds for different groups.