Students' Perceptions on Chatbots' Potential and Design Characteristics in Healthcare Education

Abstract

Chatbots may have the potential to support healthcare education by enabling personalized learning. Trust is a pre-requisite for the users to accept the chatbots. In this study we analyzed students' assignments of the MSc course "User Needs, Requirements Engineering and Evaluation" at Karolinska Institutet, aiming to explore the chatbots' potential in healthcare education and the design characteristics of chatbots that may enhance the trust. The students identified two courses: pharmacology and medical law, that have the potential to leverage chatbots' characteristics. Our analyses on the design characteristics they suggested resulted in: recognition; visibility of system status; anthropomorphism in communication; knowledge expertise, linguistic consistency; realistic interaction. Our results are in line with previous research. Future studies could investigate the educational impact on the learning outcomes and students' satisfaction when interacting with chatbots.

Keywords: Chatbot; design characteristics; healthcare education.