Agentic education · Learning science

Actionable companion · Learning design & outcomes

Learning with agency: Real-Time Emotion Recognition for Improving the Teaching–Learning Process: A Scoping Review

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide, separate from the original research. Proposed actions are not claims or recommendations attributed to the source authors. No independent peer review of this guide is asserted.

Evidence and context

Title and abstract screening; stage labels describe reported settings, not verified numerical ages. Design labels require full-text appraisal. Reported stage(s): Age / stage not established. Verify the participant population and task before transferring the findings.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the linked source license:

Abstract Emotion recognition (ER) is gaining popularity in various fields, including education. The benefits of ER in the classroom for educational purposes, such as improving students’ academic performance, are gradually becoming known. Thus, real-time ER is proving to be a valuable tool for teachers as well as for students. However, its feasibility in educational settings requires further exploration. This review offers learning experiences based on real-time ER with students to explore their potential in learning and in improving their academic achievement. The purpose is to present evidence of good implementation and suggestions for their successful application. The content analysis finds that most of the practices lead to significant improvements in terms of educational purposes. Nevertheless, the analysis identifies problems that might block the implementation of these practices in the classroom and in education; among the obstacles identified are the absence of privacy of the students and the support needs of the students. We conclude that artificial intelligence (AI) and ER are potential tools to approach the needs in ordinary classrooms, although reliable automatic recognition is still a challenge for researchers to achieve the best ER feature in real time, given the high input data variability. Keywords: educational technology, teaching skills, learning processes, emotional behavior

What kind of evidence is this?

Supporting AI learning science · Evidence synthesis

Stage: Age / stage not established. Screening labels describe reported context and study-design language. They are not a risk-of-bias rating or proof of effectiveness for an age band.

Study methods · source passage

The present article is a scoping review of the literature on real-time ER based on experiences with students during a lesson. The review is based on the Prisma statement [38] in the selection of information sources, search strategy, steps, and the procedure of the selection process, and it used the Mendeley program [39] for the management of bibliographic references.

Design the system before the pilot

Use this study to inform a learning mechanism or implementation question. It is not direct evidence that autonomous agents improve learning. Keep the proposed agent behavior separate from what the source actually tested.

  • Specify a measurable learning objective, a comparator and a task without tool assistance before adopting a system.

A 90-day district pilot

  1. Days 1–15 · Appraise. Have the curriculum lead and a teacher read the methods and limitations. Record the study design, sample, comparator, outcomes and evidence gaps. Define a local question that the study can help inform.
  2. Days 16–30 · Design. Treat the paper as background evidence until its population is verified in the full text. Do not assign an age-specific intervention or extend adult results to children. Name an accountable owner and set the baseline, success threshold and budget before implementation.
  3. Days 31–60 · Test. Start with a small voluntary cohort, preserve an accessible non-AI route and require teacher review. Use synthetic or de-identified examples; approve data handling and tool terms through district processes.
  4. Days 61–90 · Decide. Extract the participant ages or education stage, recruitment, task and comparator before selecting a local pilot. If these cannot be established, retain the paper for design discussion rather than age-band efficacy claims. Compare with baseline, document uncertainty and stop or revise if learning worsens, access is unequal or critical errors persist.

The board decision brief

Report the learning problem, evidence quality, participating population, total cost including review time, measured benefit, errors, access differences and remaining uncertainties. Make a dated recommendation to stop, revise or expand. A positive perception survey alone does not establish learning improvement.

Attribution and reuse

Cèlia Llurba; Ramon Palau. Real-Time Emotion Recognition for Improving the Teaching–Learning Process: A Scoping Review. Journal of Imaging (2024-12-09). https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging10120313

Companion prepared 2026-10-30. Original authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract is an attributed source extract; the implementation plan is new AI-assisted editorial material, offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license. This guide has not undergone independent peer review.