Effectiveness of embodied conversational agents for managing academic stress at an Indian University (ARU) during COVID‐19

Nelekar, Shreeya; Abdulrahman, Amal; Gupta, Manik; Richards, Deborah

doi:10.1111/bjet.13174

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…For example, a chatbot developed by the University of California was used as a COVID-19 screening tool for health employees entering their hospital before their clinical shift [ 40 ]. Regarding coaching, Managing Stress at University instructs Indian University students on stress management during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing 3 different patterns of tailored explanations (ie, belief-based, goal-based, and belief- and goal-based explanations) on students’ intentions to change the recommended behaviors [ 27 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

General Characteristics and Design Taxonomy of Chatbots for COVID-19: Systematic Review

Lim¹,

Custodio²,

Sunga³

et al. 2024

J Med Internet Res

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Background A conversational agent powered by artificial intelligence, commonly known as a chatbot, is one of the most recent innovations used to provide information and services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the multitude of conversational agents explicitly designed during the COVID-19 pandemic calls for characterization and analysis using rigorous technological frameworks and extensive systematic reviews. Objective This study aims to describe the general characteristics of COVID-19 chatbots and examine their system designs using a modified adapted design taxonomy framework. Methods We conducted a systematic review of the general characteristics and design taxonomy of COVID-19 chatbots, with 56 studies included in the final analysis. This review followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines to select papers published between March 2020 and April 2022 from various databases and search engines. Results Results showed that most studies on COVID-19 chatbot design and development worldwide are implemented in Asia and Europe. Most chatbots are also accessible on websites, internet messaging apps, and Android devices. The COVID-19 chatbots are further classified according to their temporal profiles, appearance, intelligence, interaction, and context for system design trends. From the temporal profile perspective, almost half of the COVID-19 chatbots interact with users for several weeks for >1 time and can remember information from previous user interactions. From the appearance perspective, most COVID-19 chatbots assume the expert role, are task oriented, and have no visual or avatar representation. From the intelligence perspective, almost half of the COVID-19 chatbots are artificially intelligent and can respond to textual inputs and a set of rules. In addition, more than half of these chatbots operate on a structured flow and do not portray any socioemotional behavior. Most chatbots can also process external data and broadcast resources. Regarding their interaction with users, most COVID-19 chatbots are adaptive, can communicate through text, can react to user input, are not gamified, and do not require additional human support. From the context perspective, all COVID-19 chatbots are goal oriented, although most fall under the health care application domain and are designed to provide information to the user. Conclusions The conceptualization, development, implementation, and use of COVID-19 chatbots emerged to mitigate the effects of a global pandemic in societies worldwide. This study summarized the current system design trends of COVID-19 chatbots based on 5 design perspectives, which may help developers conveniently choose a future-proof chatbot archetype that will meet the needs of the public in the face of growing demand for a better pandemic response.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

General Characteristics and Design Taxonomy of Chatbots for COVID-19: Systematic Review

Lim¹,

Custodio²,

Sunga³

et al. 2024

J Med Internet Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The bubble plot shows that design-oriented research was dominant when collecting data using development approaches (e.g., [58,83]). By looking deeper into the combination of XR and AI (Figure 5), we found a literature review following qualitative research [56] and a quantitative experimental design study [55].…”

Section: Rq2 Which Data Collection and Research Design Methods Were S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we could only find one publication on this topic written in Spanish since the COVID-19 outbreak [54]. Furthermore, two publications in English brought together XR and AI [55,56]. Spanish since the COVID-19 outbreak [54].…”

Section: Languagesmentioning

confidence: 98%

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You Can Handle, You Can Teach It: Systematic Review on the Use of Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Online Higher Education

Lázaro

Duart

2023

Sustainability

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Over the past year, defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed a boom in applying key emerging technologies in education. In such challenging situations, technology and education expanded their work together to strengthen and interactively impact the learning process in the online higher education context. From a pedagogical perspective, extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) were accessible toolboxes to amplify an active and learner-centered teaching method. Whether and how such activities will continue in a post-COVID-19 situation remains unclear. In this systematic literature review, we document the application of XR and AI in online higher education settings and build up an accurate depiction of their influence after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. A significant contribution of the thorough analysis conducted was the corroboration of the growing interest of these fast-emerging technologies and their impact on learner agency and outcomes, making online education more accessible, effective, engaging, collaborative, self-paced, and adapted to the diverse academic trajectories. The momentum brought about by the pandemic has served as an impulse for educators and universities to expand the use of these technologies progressively, meet new challenges, and shape the future of online higher education.

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“…Similar to this project, we have delivered a number of interventions in student populations to deal with study stress in Australia [67] and in India [68]. Other stress-related applications could include stress in office workers or to support remote workers that might feel social isolation.…”

Section: Limitations Future Work and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Natural Necessary? Human Voice versus Synthetic Voice for Intelligent Virtual Agents

Abdulrahman

Richards

2022

MTI

Self Cite

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The use of intelligent virtual agents (IVA) to support humans in social contexts will depend on their social acceptability. Acceptance will be related to the human’s perception of the IVAs as well as the IVAs’ ability to respond and adapt their conversation appropriately to the human. Adaptation implies computer-generated speech (synthetic speech), such as text-to-speech (TTS). In this paper, we present the results of a study to investigate the effect of voice type (human voice vs. synthetic voice) on two aspects: (1) the IVA’s likeability and voice impression in the light of co-presence, and (2) the interaction outcome, including human–agent trust and behavior change intention. The experiment included 118 participants who interacted with either the virtual advisor with TTS or the virtual advisor with human voice to gain tips for reducing their study stress. Participants in this study found the voice of the virtual advisor with TTS to be more eerie, but they rated both agents, with recorded voice and with TTS, similarly in terms of likeability. They further showed a similar attitude towards both agents in terms of co-presence and building trust. These results challenge previous studies that favor human voice over TTS, and suggest that even if human voice is preferred, TTS can deliver equivalent benefits.

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Effectiveness of embodied conversational agents for managing academic stress at an Indian University (ARU) during COVID‐19

Abstract: Stress has become one of the major reasons for many mental health related issues among students of all age groups, which has resulted in devastating personal losses including suicide. Societal and

Cited by 13 publications

References 47 publications

General Characteristics and Design Taxonomy of Chatbots for COVID-19: Systematic Review

General Characteristics and Design Taxonomy of Chatbots for COVID-19: Systematic Review

You Can Handle, You Can Teach It: Systematic Review on the Use of Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Online Higher Education

Is Natural Necessary? Human Voice versus Synthetic Voice for Intelligent Virtual Agents

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