International Conference on Current Trends and Challenges in Education

«Accepted for Publication»

Schools and universities around the world have begun to use collaborative virtual worlds as e-learning environments, as these environments have been shown to promote a greater sense of social presence and classroom community than text-based learning management systems. Within virtual worlds, users represent themselves with a graphical personification, an avatar, which is a visual character that the user chooses from a list or creates from a simple prototype. Avatars can take the form of humans, animals, robots, or other objects. Some users create and identify with their avatar as if it were an extension of their real-world selves (augmentation), and others as an alternative to the real (immersion). Augmented users view the virtual world as a realm in which their activities are enhanced, while immersive users take on an entirely new personae. Studies have shown that most general users of virtual worlds are augmentationist, and as a result, they have a propensity to create avatars that resemble themselves; with a tendency toward human avatars, and those matching their own gender and ethnicity. It has also been shown that users bring with them into the virtual world negative social attitudes, such as prejudice against other avatars based on race and physical characteristics. This paper outlines the importance of avatar choice, and the effects of visual embodiment on social distance and collaboration within multicultural cooperative groups utilizing virtual worlds for online learning.