Chatbots for learning: A review of educational chatbots for the Facebook Messenger

Based on a mixed-method quasi-experimental approach, ECs were found to improve learning performance and teamwork with a practical impact. Moreover, it was found that ECs facilitated collaboration among team members that indirectly influenced their ability to perform as a team. Nevertheless, affective-motivational learning outcomes such as perception of learning, need for cognition, motivation, and creative self-efficacy were not influenced by ECs. Henceforth, this study aims to add to the current body of knowledge on the design and development of EC by introducing a new collective design strategy and its pedagogical and practical implications.

Understanding the importance of human engagement and expertise in education is crucial. They offer students guidance, motivation, and emotional support—elements that AI cannot completely replicate. In this section, we present the results of the reviewed articles, focusing on our research questions, particularly with regard to ChatGPT. ChatGPT, as one of the latest AI-powered chatbots, has gained significant attention for its potential applications in education. Within just eight months of its launch in 2022, it has already amassed over 100 million users, setting new records for user and traffic growth. ChatGPT stands out among AI-powered chatbots used in education due to its advanced natural language processing capabilities and sophisticated language generation, enabling more natural and human-like conversations.

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Chatbots also follow up with prospects and assist in the final enrolment and onboarding process. Education bot analytics give insight into student preferences and needs, allowing you to tailor your strategy to better serve them. Additionally, by measuring the accuracy of your chatbot’s responses, you can make adjustments and improve its performance over time.

• MOOCBuddy was likely the first chatbot of its kind, but at the moment it is no longer available.
• None of the articles explicitly relied on usability heuristics and guidelines in designing the chatbots, though some authors stressed a few usability principles such as consistency and subjective satisfaction.
• He goes over the chatbot’s suggestions, checking them for sense and style, and selecting the ones that best convey the message he wants.
• They focus principally on functional skills and prepare students to use their language skills in the real world.
• As for the qualitative findings, firstly, even though the perception of learning did not show much variation statistically, the EC group showed additional weightage that implicates group activities, online feedback, and interaction with the lecturer as impactful.

At Kommunicate, we are envisioning a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. Duolingo has some famous and charming characters, including Chef Roberto, Renee the driver, and officer Ada, while Mongoose invites you to delve deep into its life by introducing itself as a humanoid, ready to help you always. Ethical issues such as bias, fairness, and privacy are relevant in university settings. Universities should address these concerns and establish ethical guidelines for the responsible use of AI technologies. “I also gave it the challenge of coming up with creative ideas for foods in my fridge based on an original photo (it identified the items correctly, though the creative recipe suggestions were mildly horrifying).”

Virtual students’ support 24/7 with AI chatbots

It has been scientifically proven that not everyone understands and learns in the same way. To cater to the needs of every student in terms of complex topics or subjects, chatbots can customize the learning plan and make sure that students gain maximum knowledge – in the classroom and even outside. In terms of application, chatbots are primarily used in education to teach various subjects, including but not limited to mathematics, computer science, foreign languages, and engineering. While many chatbots follow predetermined conversational paths, some employ personalized learning approaches tailored to individual student needs, incorporating experiential and collaborative learning principles. Challenges in chatbot development include insufficient training datasets, a lack of emphasis on usability heuristics, ethical concerns, evaluation methods, user attitudes, programming complexities, and data integration issues.

Existing literature review studies attempted to summarize current efforts to apply chatbot technology in education. For example, Winkler and Söllner (2018) focused on chatbots used for improving learning outcomes. On the other hand, Cunningham-Nelson et al. (2019) discussed how chatbots could be applied to enhance the student’s learning experience. The study by Pérez et al. (2020) reviewed the existing types of educational chatbots and the learning results expected from them. Smutny and Schreiberova (2020) examined chatbots as a learning aid for Facebook Messenger. Thomas (2020) discussed the benefits of educational chatbots for learners and educators, showing that the chatbots are successful educational tools, and their benefits outweigh the shortcomings and offer a more effective educational experience.

What are the benefits of chatbots in education?

Secondly, chatbots can gather data on student interactions, feedback, and performance, which can be used to identify areas for improvement and optimize learning outcomes. Thirdly education chatbots can access examination data and student responses in order to perform automated assessments. The bots can then process this information on the instructor’s request to generate student-specific scorecards and provide learning gap insights. AI chatbots can be attentive to – and train on – students’ learning habits and areas of difficulty.

• In view of that, it is worth noting that the embodiment of ECs as a learning assistant does create openness in interaction and interpersonal relationships among peers, especially if the task were designed to facilitate these interactions.
• Chatbot technology has the potential to provide quick and personalised services to everyone in the sector, including institutional employees and students.
• Every student has a different learning pace and so they require personalized sessions where they can be at their own tempo.
• “This is bad for their careers,” she says, because industry — where many of them will probably end up, owing to the dearth of permanent academic positions — is rushing towards this new technology.
• In the same year, IBM’s Watson gained fame by defeating human champions in the quiz show Jeopardy (Lally & Fodor, 2011).

Understand that you will need to start simple, gradually use AI, collect feedback and expand accordingly. Magdalena Balazinska, director of the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, embraces the progress artificial intelligence has made. Teachers can also ask ChatGPT to recommend different levels of math problems for students with different mastery of the concept, she said.

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Initially, the total of studies resulting from the databases was 1208 studies. The metadata of the studies containing; title, abstract, type of article (conference, journal, short paper), language, and keywords were extracted in a file format (e.g., bib file format). Subsequently, it was imported into the Rayyan tool Footnote 6, which allowed for reviewing, including, excluding, and filtering the articles collaboratively by the authors. In the images below you can see two sections of the flowchart of one of my chatbots. In the first one you can see that the chatbot is asking the person how they are feeling, and responding differently according to their answer.

In those moments, asking ChatGPT to “write an introduction to malaria incidence in Zambia” results in a few paragraphs that can unlock her own creativity. She also uses the tool to simplify scientific concepts, either for her own understanding, or to help to convey them to others in simple language, which, she says, is “the most useful side of AI that I’ve found so far”. For example, while working on a methods section, she was unsure how to phrase the description of her DNA sequence analysis. ” and it spat out a ten-step plan, starting with data collection and ending with reporting, which helped her to resolve the “sticky points” in her text. Some studies mentioned limitations such as inadequate or insufficient dataset training, lack of user-centered design, students losing interest in the chatbot over time, and some distractions. Studies that used questionnaires as a form of evaluation assessed subjective satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and perceived usability, apart from one study that assessed perceived learning (Table 11).

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