2024/08/24 by Cormac McGrath, Alexandra Farazouli, Teresa Cerratto-Pargman +1 · 104 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #AI in Service Interactions #Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education #Artificial intelligence #Chatbot #Computer science #Empirical research #Engineering #Epistemology #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #Framing (construction) #Generative grammar #Higher education #Philosophy #Political science #Psychology #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10734-024-01288-w
published in Higher Education 89(6), 1533-1549 (Springer Science+Business Media)
openalex publication_date 2024/08/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots trained on large language models are an example of generative AI which brings promises and threats to the higher education sector. In this study, we examine the emerging research area of AI chatbots in higher education (HE), focusing specifically on empirical studies conducted since the release of ChatGPT. Our review includes 23 research articles published between December 2022 and December 2023 exploring the use of AI chatbots in HE settings. We take a three-pronged approach to the empirical data. We first examine the state of the emerging field of AI chatbots in HE. Second, we identify the theories of learning used in the empirical studies on AI chatbots in HE. Third, we scrutinise the discourses of AI in HE framing the latest empirical work on AI chatbots. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the eclectic state of the nascent research area of AI chatbots in HE, the lack of common conceptual groundings about human learning, and the presence of both dystopian and utopian discourses about the future role of AI chatbots in HE.