Co-creation of chatbots as an educational resource: training the trainers workshop

Pears, Matthew; Henderson, James; Bamidis, Panagiotis D.; Pattichis, Constantinos S.; Karlgren, Klas; Wharrad, Heather; Konstantinidis, Stathis Th

Abstract

BACKGROUND

There is growing need for personalised individual student support in healthcare curricula. A key limitation to providing quality support surrounds large student-to-lecturer ratios. This can result in attenuation of lecturer's efforts to provide high level support for all students. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, specifically usage of machine conversation systems known as chatbots, can support education delivery. The co-creation of chatbots has complexities and barriers which may hinder design, creation, and implementation. Therefore, workshops are required to deliver support in creating formal specifications for chatbot development.

AIMS

The Chatbots Enhanced Personalised European Healthcare Curricula (CEPEH) ERAMSUS+ project aimed to co-design and implement innovative pedagogical approaches-utilising chatbots. One of CEPEH objectives was to increase participants' knowledge and confidence in co-design and creation of chatbots within a 'training the trainers' workshop, towards creating a powerful new digital Open Education Resource. Through co-design with students, healthcare staff, lecturers, and clinicians, improved understanding, and skills into co-designing effective chatbots was explored.

METHOD

The 3-day workshop primarily surrounded co-design with the stakeholders following the ASPIRE framework and implementation of chatbots as an educational resource. Pre-and post-questionnaires captured 15 participants' confidence, knowledge, and understanding of chatbots and the methods to develop digital educational resources.

RESULTS

Wilcoxon's Signed Rank test compared pre-and post-workshop results. Significant increases were suggested for: knowledge and understanding on the co-creation methods to develop digital educational resources (p = .046), on what a chatbots is (p = .004), and on the design and development of chatbots as educational resources (p = .016). After the workshop, 26.7% of participants declared that they overestimated their knowledge and understanding on the co-creation methods to develop digital educational resources. Confidence on designing and developing chatbots increased by 48% (p = .036).

DISCUSSION

A 'training the trainers' workshop aimed at improving knowledge and confidence in co-design and creation of chatbots provided promising results, acting as a pivotal curriculum baseline for other higher education institutions. Participants better understood the processes towards creating a personalised specification, and for flexible learning to support European medical and nursing schools. Increase of such workshops will accommodate creation of more chatbots able to sustain several years of reuse, in addition to being low budget/maintenance. European medical and nursing schools may benefit from attending future workshops.

Citation

Pears, M., Henderson, J., Bamidis, P. D., Pattichis, C. S., Karlgren, K., Wharrad, H., & Konstantinidis, S. T. (2021, March). Co-creation of chatbots as an educational resource: training the trainers workshop. Presented at 15th International Technology, Education and Development Conference, Online Conference

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: 15th International Technology, Education and Development Conference
• Start Date: Mar 8, 2021
• End Date: Mar 9, 2021
• Acceptance Date: Jan 21, 2021
• Publication Date: Mar 8, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 9, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 8, 2021
• Journal: INTED2021 Proceedings; INTED Proceedings
• Pages: 7808-7815
• Series Title: INTED Proceedings
• Series ISSN: 2340-1079
• Book Title: INTED2021 Proceedings
• ISBN: 9788409276660
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2021.1570
• Keywords: Digital Pedagogical Innovation; Participatory Design; co-design; Chatbots; Conversational Agents; OER
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5312865
• Publisher URL: https://library.iated.org/view/PEARS2021COC
• Related Public URLs: https://iated.org/inted/