Type and Duration
ERASMUS, November 2021 until October 2023Coordinator
Institute of Information SystemsMain Research
Business Process ManagementDescription
We observed the abundance of smart toys, adaptive learning applications, and digital assistants for school-children on the market. These products are artificial intelligence (AI) based conversational agents that can communicate using natural language. The COVID19 pandemic probably played an important role in promoting their adoption. The truth is, however inconvenient, that we still do not know much about how schoolchildren harness these AI-based conversational agents for their benefits. Because of the way they are designed (i.e., real touchable physique versus digital character), schoolchildren may have different kinds of interaction and experience with them. Moreover, they may be perceived differently because of their communication modali-ties (i.e., text, voice, or gestures). This project addressed a discussion that is likely to become more glaring in the next years, due to the increasing adoption of in AI-based conversational agents and generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) for learning and leisure activities. We would like to highlight four main results of our project:1: We synthesized a typology of conversational agents for schoolchildren and published the typology in a premier Information Systems journal.
2: We gained insights into children's perception and use of conversational agents for learning and leisure.
3: We conducted a scientific experiment to understand whether and how children can benefit from different types of conversational agents in learning (knowledge acquisition and retention). 4: We disseminated the knowledge gained throughout the project on our project blog (https://ai-bility.eu/blog).
5: We wrote and published stories for children to share the knowledge with families in a fun and engaged way (see https://ai-bility.eu/stories).
Project Manager
Publications
Chandra Kruse, L., Bergener, K., Conboy, K., Lundström, J. E., Maedche, A., Sarker, S., Seeber, I., Stein, A., & & Tømte, C. E. (2023). Understanding the Digital Companions of Our Future Generation. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. (ABDC_2022: A; ABS_2021: 2; VHB_3: C)
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