Artificially intelligent conversational agents: exploring their value in education and/or healthcare

Artificially intelligent conversational agents (such as ChatGPT) are becoming increasingly common in our everyday lives. The benefits of using these technologies are becoming clear in a range of commercial contexts, however, there much less is known about their potential value within the higher education and/or healthcare domains.

One possible area of focus within the higher education domain is to explore the value of artificially intelligent conversational agents for carrying out assessments. More specifically, viva assessments are used frequently to assess candidates on their work and have many benefits for both the student and the assessor. For example, providing: the opportunity to carry out highly personalised/tailored assessments, unique insight into student ability and understanding, probe depth of knowledge, ensure authenticity of submitted written work, and provide real-time feedback on performance, to name a few. Viva assessments, however, are known to cause anxiety, particularly as a result of the social interaction and in particular face-to-face interaction with an assessor/lecturer, that a traditional viva setting demands. Although there is some evidence in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and agent-based interaction research that suggests that interaction with artificial agents can elicit lower levels of anxiety compared with a human equivalent, there is a need to explore the pedagogical value of using intelligent (emotionally intelligent or similar) artificial agents to carry out viva assessments within the higher education domain.

Whilst this advertisement sets the backdrop to the area in which the successful PhD candidate could position their research, there is much scope for tailoring this topic to the successful candidate’s specific knowledge, interests, and skills. For example, there may be an interest in exploring how AI Conversational Agents can be used to help empower teachers/lecturers deliver more effective teaching, or how student learning can be enhanced and improved. Similarly, there is significant scope to explore the use of intelligent conversational agents within the area of healthcare research, for example, exploring the value of using artificial agents in the context of talking therapies (e.g. psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioural therapy, cognitive analytic therapy), if this is an area that is more in line with the successful candidate’s interests.

The proposed project will explore the value of using intelligent conversational agents within the context of higher education or healthcare. It is envisaged that the project would involve the design, development, and evaluation of a prototype conversational agent (embodied/not embodied, possibly using wizard of oz techniques) which would be trialled within the chosen higher education/healthcare context.

Candidates should ideally have some prototype design or software development skills. Experience of carrying out user-centred research and collecting and analysing both qualitative and quantitative data is also desirable.

Brunel offers a number of funding options to research students that help cover the cost of their tuition fees, contribute to living expenses or both. See more information here: https://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/Research-degrees/Research-degree-funding. The UK Government is also offering Doctoral Student Loans for eligible students, and there is some funding available through the Research Councils. Many of our international students benefit from funding provided by their governments or employers. Brunel alumni enjoy tuition fee discounts of 15%.