Student Experiences on the Use of Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbots in Programming Education

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine student opinions about the artificial intelligence-based chatbot developed to support programming learning. For this purpose, a case study from qualitative research methods was used. The study group consisted of 42 6th grade students attending a public school in Keçiören district of Ankara province. In order to obtain opinions on the use of the chatbot, a form consisting of open-ended questions was developed by the researcher and sent to the participants via Google Forms, and the opinions of the participants were obtained with the questions in the form. Descriptive analysis technique was used to analyze the qualitative data obtained. While analyzing the students%252339%253B answers, the frequency of occurrence of codes and their relationship with each other were examined. Repetitive expressions were grouped under appropriate codes, and necessary interpretations were made according to the intensity of these groupings. When the students were asked how they did their activities, it was seen that most of them did it by asking the chatbot, reached the desired result, did not have much difficulty, the chatbot facilitated their work, directed their questions whenever they needed, understood the answers given, and that the students thought it was effective for them to learn by asking questions and discovering themselves with the answers given to the questions. In addition to positive opinions about the environment such as quot%253Bexcellent, beautiful, good, enjoyable, fun, useful, interesting, conveys information to us accurately, we learn what we do not know without needing anyone, it is a very good explanatory and really useful environment, we learn things we cannot do from there, it is useful, facilitating, very useful for those who want to learn codingquot%253B, negative features such as quot%253Bit responds according to the old version of the coding environment and it is difficult to understand some answersquot%253B were also mentioned, although very few in number