Impacts of an AI-Based "Cha"bot on College Students' After-Class Review, Academic Performance, Self-Efficacy, Learning Attitude, and Motivation

• Published in: Educational technology research and development 2022-10, Vol.70 (5), p.1843-1865
• Main Authors: Lee, Yen-Fen, Hwang, Gwo-Jen, Chen, Pei-Ying
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Artificial Intelligence; College Students; Computer Mediated Communication; Control Groups; Feedback (Response); Foreign Countries; Learning Motivation; Robotics; Self Efficacy; Student Attitudes
• ISSN: 1042-1629
• DOI: 10.1007/s11423-022-10142-8

Review strategies after learning new knowledge are essential for students to consolidate the key points, understand the subject content, analyze aspects of the learning topics, and summarize the knowledge content of learning while mastering new knowledge. However, educators have found that students generally have difficulties seeking help when they encounter learning problems. This could significantly affect their after-class review performances. To cope with this problem, an after-class review approach with an AI (Artificial Intelligence)-based chatbot is proposed in this study to provide students with immediate and quality feedback during the learning process. Moreover, a quasi-experiment was conducted to explore students' learning motivation, attitude, and academic performance when using the AI-based chatbot. Participants were two classes of students from a university in Taiwan. One class with 18 students was the experimental group and the other with 20 students was the control group. The experimental group used the AI-based chatbot in the after-class review, while the control group used the conventional after-class review approach. Research results showed that the application of AI-based chatbots in the review process of public health courses could improve students' academic performance, self-efficacy, learning attitude, and motivation. In other words, chatbots could help students become more active in the learning process. It is noted that after students asked questions, providing them with sufficient feedback during the review process could make them feel recognized and help to establish a relaxing and friendly interaction, thereby improving their academic performance.