A review of opportunities and challenges of chatbots in education

• Published in: Interactive learning environments Vol. 31; no. 7; pp. 4099 - 4112
• Main Authors: Hwang, Gwo-Jen, Chang, Ching-Yi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.10.2023; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Chatbot; chatbot in education; Chatbots; Correlation analysis; Education; Educational Research; Empirical analysis; Foreign Countries; Learning Experience; Learning Processes; Learning Strategies; Literature reviews; Research Methodology; Research Needs; Statistical tests; Student Attitudes; systematic review; Teaching Methods; Technology Uses in Education; trend analysis; Variance analysis; Hong Kong; United States; Taiwan
• ISSN: 1049-4820; 1744-5191
• DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2021.1952615

This study explores the trends of chatbots in education studies by conducting a literature review to analyze relevant papers published in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals by searching the Web of Science (WoS) database. From the analysis results, it was found that the United States, Taiwan and Hong Kong are the top three contributing countries or regions. In addition, most studies adopted quantitative methods in their research design, such as ANOVA (Analysis of variance), descriptive statistics, t test, and correlation analysis. ANCOVA (Analysis of covariance) was the most frequently adopted approach for comparing the performances or perceptions of different groups of students. From the analysis results, the greatest proportion of studies adopted guided learning, followed by no learning activities. It was determined that the studies related to chatbots in education are still in an early stage since there are few empirical studies investigating the use of effective learning designs or learning strategies with chatbots. This implies much room for conducting relevant research to drive innovative teaching in terms of improving the learning process and learning outcomes. Finally, we highlight the research gaps and suggest several directions for future research based on the findings in the present study.