음성대화기반 챗봇 EBSe AI 펭톡에 대한 초등학생 인식 조사

There have been increasing attempts at using AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots in the elementary English classroom, where many researchers have created their own AI chatbots to be implemented in such small-scale field research. However, AI Pengtalk, a newly released AI chatbot designed by EBS and ETRI, is a possibly groundbreaking application for English education for elementary school students. This app is distributed to public elementary schools nationwide free of charge in April, 2021. The present study investigates 5th graders’ recognition on AI Pengtalk and factors that influence their participation and satisfaction after using the app over a 10 week period. The results show that gender is a statistically significant factor that affects students’ participation of using the app. Although students’ satisfaction rate over the app appears to be quite high, it is not particularly related to their perceived speaking abilities. It is also shown that prior experience of AI chatbots significantly influences students’ satisfaction with the app. In conclusion, the present study suggests pedagogical implications not only for teachers who try to apply AI Pengtalk in their classroom for boosting students’ motivation, but also for the app designers who desire to improve the quality of the app by overcoming temporary novelty effects.