After dedicating months to this project and delving into thousands of research papers on AI conversational agents within educational settings, we have finally submitted our comprehensive literature review and survey on the cutting-edge developments in pedagogical AI conversational agents for publication to Educational Technology Research and Development, a Q1 scholarly Springer journal focusing on research and development in educational technology.
The research paper has now been published: Link to paper
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-025-10447-4
Abstract
The ever-changing global educational landscape, coupled with the advancement of Web3, is seeing rapid changes in the ways pedagogical artificially intelligent conversational agents are being developed and used to advance teaching and learning in higher education. Given the rapidly evolving research landscape, there is a need to establish what the current state of the art is in terms of the pedagogical applications and technological functions of these conversational agents and to identify the key existing research gaps, and future research directions, in the field. A literature survey of the state of the art of pedagogical AI conversational agents in higher education was conducted. The resulting literature sample (n=92) was analysed using thematic template analysis, and from the results emerged a conceptual framework of pedagogical conversational agents in higher education. Furthermore, a survey of the state of the art was then presented as a function of the framework. The conceptual framework proposes that pedagogical AI conversational agents can primarily be considered in terms of their pedagogical applications and their pedagogical purposes, which include pastoral, instructional and cognitive, and are further considered in terms of mode of study and intent. The technological functions of the agents are also considered in terms of embodiment (embodied/disembodied) and functional type and features. This research proposes that there are numerous opportunities for future research, such as, the use of conversational agents for enhancing assessment, reflective practice and to support more effective administration and management practice. In terms of technological functions, future research would benefit from focusing on enhancing the level of personalisation and media richness of interaction that can be achieved by AI conversational agents.
Keywords
Pedagogy, Education, Higher education, Conversational agents, Chatbots, Human computer interaction, Artificial intelligence
