Lecturer's Apprentice: A Chatbot for Assisting Novice Programmers

Students often struggle to communicate with their peers or lecturers about some of the issues they face during their time at university, either it be academic or personal. One of these issues is introductory programming, in instances were they choose to memorise code in order to pass rather than understanding how the logic behind the code actually works. Programming requires an understanding of how a certain logical flows and algorithm work. In this article, we discuss the difficulties that students face in introductory programming. We have also developed an interactive AI chatbot tool that students can interact with on some of the academic issues they may face. They can ask for advice on how to understand algorithms and what measures to take in order to understand programming logic and visualise metal models of the algorithms. The chatbot can also be used for personal advice. A survey that was conducted showed that there is a need for such a tool in aiding students through their university life.