Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are gaining increasing popularity in education. Due to their increasing popularity, many empirical studies have been devoted to exploring the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. The proliferation of experimental studies has highlighted the need to summarize and synthesize the inconsistent findings about the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. However, few reviews focused on the meta‐analysis of the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. The present study performed a meta‐analysis of 24 randomized studies utilizing Stata software (version 14). The main goal of the current study was to meta‐analytically examine the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes and the moderating effects of educational levels and intervention duration. The results indicated that AI chatbots had a large effect on students' learning outcomes. Moreover, AI chatbots had a greater effect on students in higher education, compared to those in primary education and secondary education. In addition, short interventions were found to have a stronger effect on students' learning outcomes than long interventions. It could be explained by the argument that the novelty effects of AI chatbots could improve learning outcomes in short interventions, but it has worn off in the long interventions. Future designers and educators should make attempt to increase students' learning outcomes by equipping AI chatbots with human‐like avatars, gamification elements and emotional intelligence. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have been gaining increasing popularity in education. Studies undertaken so far have provided conflicting evidence concerning the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. There has remained a paucity of meta‐analyses synthesizing the contradictory findings about the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. What this paper adds This study, through meta‐analysis, synthesized these recent findings about the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes. This study found that AI chatbots could have a large effect on students' learning outcomes. This study found that the effects of AI chatbots were moderated by educational levels and intervention duration. Implications for practice and/or policy AI chatbot designers could make AI chatbots better by equipping AI chatbots with human‐like avatars, gamification elements and emotional intelligence Practitioners and/or teachers should draw attention to the positive and negative effects of AI chatbots on students. Considering the importance of ChatGPT, more research is required to develop a better understanding of the effects of ChatGPT in education. More research is needed to examine the mechanisms underlying the effects of AI chatbots on students' learning outcomes.

Recently, achievement emotions have attracted much scholarly attention since these emotions could play a pivotal role in online learning outcomes. Despite the importance of achievement emotions in online education, very few studies have been committed to a systematic review of their effects on online learning outcomes. This study aimed to systematically review studies examining the effects of achievement emotions on online learning outcomes in terms of motivation, performance, satisfaction, engagement, and achievement. According to the selection process of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) principles, a total of 23 publications were included in this review. It was concluded that positive achievement emotions, such as enjoyment, pride, and relaxation, could generally exert a positive effect on online learning motivation, performance, engagement, satisfaction, and achievement. It should be noted that excessive positive emotions might be detrimental to online learning outcomes. On the other hand, it has been difficult to determine the effects of negative achievement emotions on online learning outcomes because of disagreement on the effects of negative achievement emotions. In order to improve online learners' learning outcomes, instructors should implement interventions that help online learners control and regulate their achievement emotions. Teaching interventions, technological interventions, and treatment interventions could benefit online learners emotionally and academically. Future studies could examine the moderating roles of contextual factors and individual variables in the effects of achievement emotions on online learning outcomes.

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Recent studies have integrated educational games with augmented reality (AR) to develop learners’ motivation. However, few reviews focused on the acceptance of AR-based educational games. This review aims to provide comprehensive insight into the acceptance of AR-based educational games. This review followed the selection process of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA), including nine peer-reviewed articles published from January 2019 to March 2022. It is concluded that studies preferred to recruit students to play AR-based educational games via handhelds and used questionnaires to understand students’ acceptance. Technology Acceptance Model was the most frequently used model. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were two dominant factors influencing students’ acceptance of AR-based educational games. In the future, game designers should integrate target learning knowledge in designing AR. Future studies should focus on the effect of socio-cultural constructs on different participants’ acceptance of AR-based educational games.