Ann G. Neering: Interactive Chatbot To Motivate And Engage Engineering Students

Student motivation and engagement are essential ingredients to academic success. Although the relationship is clear, the challenge is finding what pedagogical methods and context motivates students and engages them to a point where they become active participants in the learning process. An effective approach to discovering what will motivate and engage students is to focus on student's interests, goals, aspirations, and values. With a better understanding of students it is possible to develop an effective learning environment or activity that is embraced by students, leads them to a deeper level of learning, and entices them to become lifelong learners. This approach was the starting point in the development of an online artificial intelligence or "chatbot" named Anne G. Neering (EnGiNeering). The chatbot is a computer program delivered on course websites that serves as a text based conversational agent. The purpose of this interactive online learning environment is to encourage students to think reflectively on course fundamentals. Although providing students with access to a complex artificial intelligence focused on course fundamentals is a valuable byproduct, the greatest value lies in the student motivation and engagement associated with development of the knowledge base. Student involvement in the process of building Anne's knowledge base has proven to be instructional and fun. The knowledge base is built from individual and cooperative student interactions. As part of assigned coursework students formulate questions based on their perceptions of course fundamentals and attempt to provide responses that are consistent with their own knowledge and in a way that other students would relate to and clearly understand. An evaluation mode uses student interaction to assess the accuracy of student responses and provides an interesting environment for open ended student interaction on course concepts. The development and assessment of the knowledge base is primarily the work of students but is somewhat hidden from the users. The "chatbot" is currently being tested by four engineering professors and one business professor with seven undergraduate courses. The paper outlines the response of students to this learner centered environment and its impact on student motivation, engagement, and ultimately academic success. The success of this learning environment is also explained in terms of its relationship to the four dimensions of the HPL learning environments and the STAR Legacy cycle.