Hey Alexa … Examining Factors Influencing the Educational Use of AI-Enabled Voice Assistants During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a rapid growth of online learning. While majority of the current research focus on different learning management systems, massive open online courses, or even specific softwares like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, the use of artificial-intelligence (AI) based voice assistants (VAs) for the purpose of online education is very rare. In this work we propose, validate, and test a research model that explains the continuance usage of VAs by students for learning purpose during their home quarantine period. We consider novel pandemic-specific psychological factors like loneliness and self-quarantine, together with anthropomorphic factors like voice attractiveness of the VAs for proposing the research model. The factors of satisfaction and continuance usage are borrowed from Expectation Confirmation Theory. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling is used for testing the proposed model.