The development of Messenger bots for teaching and learning and accounting students’ experience of the use thereof

Abstract

This study reports on the development of two Messenger bots, designed to facilitate the learning of introductory and intermediate accounting. The Messenger bots were developed using a visual development environment that requires no coding knowledge. A thick description of the development of the Messenger bots is provided to encourage replication. It is submitted that instructors, rather than programmers, should take ownership of developing Messenger bots for teaching and learning. Preliminary exploration of the students’ satisfaction yielded positive results. Suggestions are made for specific applications of Messenger bots in teaching and learning and for further research exploring the use of Messenger bots in teaching and learning. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications (apps) have potential to facilitate effective social constructivist‐based collaborative learning. Students extensively use MIM apps. There is reluctance from instructors to engage in after hours MIM student consultation. Messenger bots can deliver content on demand, using inter alia text, images and video, and the effective use thereof in teaching and learning has not yet been explored. What this paper adds Instructors, without coding knowledge, are enabled to develop Messenger bots for teaching and learning. Social constructivist‐based suggestions for specific teaching and learning applications of Messenger bots are provided. Preliminary evidence suggests students positively experienced the use of Messenger bots in their learning. Implications for practice and/or policy Messenger bots may support instruction in large classes. Messenger bots may be suited to supplemental instruction rather than replacing face‐to‐face instruction. Specific teaching and learning applications of Messenger bots should be implemented and the effectiveness thereof explored.

Rediscovering the use of chatbots in education: A systematic literature review

“…The role of educational chatbots is not limited to class assistants, they have also been tested as Virtual Patients [60], whose mission is to help train nurses to improve their effective communication skills. Schmulian and Coetzee [56] have developed chatbots visually (through the company ChatFuel) without much IT knowledge, for training in accounting. All these chatbots have been developed as educational tools and to generate knowledge.…”

Educational chatbots for project-based learning: investigating learning outcomes for a team-based design course

“…Accordingly, chatbots popularized by social media and MIM applications have been widely accepted (Rahman et al, 2018 ; Smutny & Schreiberova, 2020 ) and referred to as mobile-based chatbots. These bots have been found to facilitates collaborative learning (Schmulian & Coetzee, 2019 ), multimodal communication (Haristiani et al, 2019 ), scaffolding, real-time feedback (Gonda et al, 2019 ), personalized learning (Oke & Fernandes, 2020 ; Verleger & Pembridge, 2019 ), scalability, interactivity (Dekker et al, 2020 ) and fosters knowledge creation and dissipation effectively (Verleger & Pembridge, 2019 ). Nevertheless, given the possibilities of MIM in conceptualizing an ideal learning environment, we often overlook if instructors are capable of engaging in high-demand learning activities, especially around the clock (Kumar & Silva, 2020 ).…”

“…Nevertheless, given the possibilities of MIM in conceptualizing an ideal learning environment, we often overlook if instructors are capable of engaging in high-demand learning activities, especially around the clock (Kumar & Silva, 2020 ). Chatbots can potentially be a solution to such a barrier (Schmulian & Coetzee, 2019 ), especially by automatically supporting learning communication and interactions (Eeuwen, 2017 ; Garcia Brustenga et al, 2018 ) for even a large number of students.…”

Framework para sistema tutor adaptativo ao raciocínio crítico em contabilidade - STARCC

“…Hoje, com o avanço da internet e da tecnologia computacional, existem inúmeros programas desse porte em diversos setores da sociedade. Na área da educação, o uso dos Chatbots é suportado pela teoria do Construcionismo Social, em que o conhecimento é construído por meio das interações entre os indivíduos (Heller et al, 2005;Schmulian & Coetzee, 2018). Na área da…”

“…Contabilidade, esses sistemas têm sido utilizados para automação de tarefas na área empresarial (Marshall & Lambert, 2018) e também como instrumento de apoio ao ensino de disciplinas introdutórias (Schmulian & Coetzee, 2018). Além disso, são utilizados como apoio ao método instrucional de Aprendizagem Baseada em Problemas (PBL) (Ellis & Phillips, 2011 (Bandy, 1990;Albrecht & Sack, 2000;Dosch & Wambsganss, 2006 reúne informações, conteúdos programáticos e conduz os processos avaliativos dos estudantes.…”