Interacting with a conversational agent system for educational purposes in online courses

Since distance education creates new opportunities for learners, the enrollment in online courses has been sharply increasing in higher education. However, the higher attrition rate is one of the more significant concerns in this field. Educational researchers have found that meaningful interactions play a significant role in learner persistence in online courses. Still, it is challenging for an individual instructor to promote learners' positive interaction experiences. The expectation of improved learners' interaction with conversational agent systems has received attention in the distance education field. Few conversational agent systems have been developed for educational purposes, and few systems are used in real online learning settings. This study aims at designing and developing a conversational agent system to promote the learner's meaningful interaction in online courses, and also exploring the feasibility of human interaction with the conversational agent system, or chatbot, in online courses in higher education. The primary findings of this study show that instant, content-related, and quality interactions between the learner and the conversational agent system is applicable to graduate-level online courses. Implications and future research are discussed.