Enhancing digital literacy with an intelligent conversational agent for senior citizens in Thailand

Abstract

Intelligent conversational agents have been implemented as virtual assistants in mobile applications to facilitate, engage, and interact with users for optimal learning experiences. With 24/7 availability, providing instant and consistent responses, chatbots, as a type of intelligent conversational agent, will help benefit the learning communication, makes the entire learning experience more engaging for the learners. They have also been successfully used by the elderly to encourage behavioral change for their intended purpose. This study investigated baseline data on the use of digital platforms of senior citizens in Bangkok Metropolitan and the six regions of Thailand and developed a chatbot from the derived data. The chatbot contained learning media and service function, served as a platform to enhance digital literacy for the senior citizens in Thailand. The study was conducted in 3 phases, the baseline survey on the use of digital platforms of the senior citizens in Thailand, the development of the chatbot and learning media, and the pre-experimental expert validation. The samples were 422 senior citizens. The data were collected by questionnaires, focused group discussion, and interviews with experts, and analyzed by percentage, mean, standard deviation, and content analysis. Results were incorporated in the design and development of the chatbot innovation following the software development life cycle (SDLC) framework. Expert feedback revealed that this chatbot innovation was easy to access, convenient to request for operations, artistically appealing, and comprehensive in content and functionality for enhancing digital literacy skills, which are to access, analyze, evaluate, participate, and act. In the next research sequence, this innovation will subsequently be experimented with more senior citizens to prepare and improve their digital competence to consequently equip them with the necessary capacities to keep up with Thailand’s transition towards a full-blown aging society.

Implementing the Bashayer chatbot in Saudi higher education: measuring the influence on students' motivation and learning strategies

“…Learners can develop their skills by using chatbots to assess their behavior and keep track of their advancement (Colace et al, 2018 ). Chatbots' consistency, availability, and accessibility as conversational agents facilitate active interactions, which result in engaging experiences for learners (Sriwisathiyakun and Dhamanitayakul, 2022 ). Such easy and flexible interactions, powered by chatbot technology, enhance autonomous learning, learning engagement, goal orientation, learning strategies, and achievement (Winkler and Söllner, 2018 ; Durall and Kapros, 2020 ; Pérez et al, 2020 ; Smutny and Schreiberova, 2020 ; Du et al, 2021 ; Haristiani and Rifai, 2021 ).…”

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“…6,15 Thailand has established the 20-year Thai National Strategy (2017-2036) and the second Thai National Plan for the Elderly (2002-2021) to increase health awareness, basic self-care, and self-prevention, strengthen ing organizations that care for the elderly. 16 Furthermore, as the senior population increases, Thailand faces a scarcity of workers with necessary skills and experience to care for the elderly. 16 Therefore, encourag ing the elderly with multimorbidity to take charge of their health behaviors to reduce complications and improve the quality of their lives presents a worthwhile challenge.…”

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