Unleashing the Potential of Chatbots in Education: A State-Of-The-Art Analysis

Abstract

Chatbots are becoming a ubiquitous trend in many fields such as medicine, product and service industry, and education. Chatbots are computer programs used to conduct auditory or textual conversations. A growing body of evidence suggests that these programs have the potential to change the way students learn and search for information. Especially in large-scale learning scenarios with more than 100 students per lecturer, chatbots are able to solve the problem of individual student support. However, until now, there has been no systematic, structured overview of their use in education. The aim of this paper is therefore to conduct a systematic literature review based on a multi-perspective framework, from which we have derived initial search questions, synthesized past research, and highlighted future research directions. We reviewed titles and abstracts of 1405 articles drawn from management, education, information systems, and psychology literature before examining and individually coding a relevant subset of 80 articles.The results show that chatbots are in the very beginning of entering education. Few studies suggest the potential of chatbots for improving learning processes and outcomes. Nevertheless, past research has revealed that the effectiveness of chatbots in education is complex and depends on a variety of factors. With our literature review, we make two principal contributions: first, we structure and synthesize past research by using an input-process-output framework, and secondly, we use the framework to highlight research gaps for guiding future research in that area.

JAICOB: A Data Science Chatbot

“…A comprehensive systematic review of the use of chatbots in education is provided in this recent survey [9]. The authors identify several perspectives for analyzing current research following the theoretical model of Technology-Mediated Learning (TML) [10]: structure (input), learning process (process), and learning outcome (output).…”

“…The authors identify several perspectives for analyzing current research following the theoretical model of Technology-Mediated Learning (TML) [10]: structure (input), learning process (process), and learning outcome (output). Regarding the input perspective, several dimensions have been identified [9]: student profile, educational settings, and chatbot technology. Learning outputs depend on individual student characteristics such as personality traits, technological skills, and educational and social background [9].…”

“…Regarding the input perspective, several dimensions have been identified [9]: student profile, educational settings, and chatbot technology. Learning outputs depend on individual student characteristics such as personality traits, technological skills, and educational and social background [9].…”

Designing a Conversational Agent as a Formative Course Evaluation Tool

“…To enhance student perception and motivation for the assessment of the effectiveness of a course, the third meta-requirement (MR3) focuses on information on the intension and implementation of the course evaluation (e.g., [33]). The fourth meta-requirement (MR4) deals with the need for an individualized CA to be easy accessible, available twenty-four hours a day, and speeds up response times to enhance user satisfaction (e.g., [21]).…”

“…Research on CA support for lecturers is still scarce. Moreover, Winkler and Söllner [21] emphasize that CAs might also have great potential as an evaluation tool for lecturers. In a recent study Kim et al [22] compared a CA against online surveys in an experiment and found that participants using a chatbot were providing more differentiated responses and, thus, the CA survey resulted in higher-quality data compared to the online survey.…”