Towards Embodied Conversational Agents for Reducing Oral Exam Anxiety in Extended Reality

Abstract: Oral examinations are a prevalent but psychologically demanding form of assessment in higher education. Many students experience intense anxiety, which can impair cognitive performance and hinder academic success. This position paper explores the potential of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in extended reality (XR) environments to support students preparing for oral exams. We propose a system concept that integrates photorealistic ECAs with real-time capable LLMs to enable psychologically safe, adaptive, and repeatable rehearsal of oral examination scenarios. We also discuss the potential benefits and challenges of such an envisioned system.