Using the Community of Inquiry framework to develop an educational chatbot: lesson learned from a mobile instant messaging learning environment

Abstract

Chatbots can be defined as artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) that is programmed to perform a single task such as answering customers’ questions by harnessing the power of machine learning. However, there is a lack of educational-related chatbots developed to interact with learners in mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps, as well as a lack of theoretical grounding for chatbots for teaching and learning purposes. In this study, a chatbot taking on the role of an instructor, was developed to teach adult students fake news identification in an online course via the WeChat MIM app. We provide a detailed description of the MIM chatbot development guided by the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework. We present the evaluation of the MIM chatbot based on a self-reported survey regarding students’ perceptions of the teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. The findings revealed social presence mainly existed between the chatbot and individual student in a MIM learning environment. We hence offer some preliminary design principles for future educational chatbot design.