Stimulating task interest: human partners or chatbots?

The aim of this research project was to examine the impact of chatbots as conversation partners. First and second year Japanese university students (n=120) from a private university in Southwest Japan were randomly assigned to either conduct a speaking task with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot or human partner. Preliminary analysis of the data suggests that student interest in interacting with the chatbot conversation partners decreased across the experiment period, whilst interest in performing identical tasks with their peers (human partners) remained relatively stable. The findings suggest that educators and administrators should be cautious about relying entirely on AI conversation partners as a substitute to human partners if they wish to stimulate and maintain student interest levels in conversation tasks. Furthermore, teachers should carefully consider students’ language proficiency and communicative ability before designing and implementing speaking tasks that involve the use of AI conversation partners. Using chatbots as an extension of human-human conversation activity practice and not a replacement is recommended in order to maintain student interest and engagement across a language program.