Exploring the Effects of Conversational Agents on Learners’ Reflective Writing

Abstract

Reflective writing is known to be effective in improving students’ learning process. However, learners routinely encounter difficulties when reflecting, and often struggle to effectively formulate thoughts in a constructive manner. In this project, we aim to explore if conversational reflection with the help of an agent (i.e., chatbot) might help learners, especially in business-related studies, to improve the quality of their reflective writing compared to traditional, static interfaces. To do so, we aim to design and develop a conversational agent (CA), a software program mimicking human conversation, that leads learners through their reflection process by providing step-by-step guidance and individual writing feedback, with the aim of enhancing the quality of their written reflections. We will rely on an already existing CA developed by our team to explore the use case in at least two different lectures at BFH.