Using a Chatbot in Post-secondary Composition Instruction


  

Lin and Chang offer a study about developing and using a chatbot in post-secondary composition instruction in Canada, published in the Educational Technology & Society. What is most intriguing about it is that they published their article in 2020, two years before the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Obviously, their chatbot is nowhere near as developed as ChatGPT, but the study shows that the idea of chatbots, as well as incorporating them into education is not new.

Ling and Chang used the chatbot to help them deliver writing instructions when teaching students how to develop a thesis statement for an argumentative essay. Their research results show that the majority of participating students had a positive learning experience, and gained new knowledge while using the bot. On the other hand the study was limited, and further research is required.

The full article is available here: https://www.j-ets.net/collection/published-issues/23_1 and here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26915408

 

Work referenced:

Lin, M. P.-C., & Chang, D. (2020). Enhancing Post-secondary Writers’ Writing Skills with a Chatbot: A Mixed-Method Classroom Study. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 23(1), 78–92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26915408 

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