CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 134Online and Blended LearningHigher Education Research StudiesHigher Education Practises and Engagement

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 55 of the 56 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Online chat and chatbots to enhance mature student engagement in higher education

Open access
Abbas, Noorhan, Whitfield, Jenni, Atwell, Eric, Bowman, Helen, Pickard, Thomas, Walker, Aisha·2022·International Journal of Lifelong Education
DOI 10.1080/02601370.2022.2066213
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Mature students transitioning into their first year of higher education face many difficulties that affect their motivation, participation and success. Their feelings of being disconnected from their peers and from their institutions are among the key barriers to the successful completion of their courses. Encouraging online student engagement among mature students to establish social connection with their instructors and peers can reduce their isolation and enhance their ‘sense of belonging’. During the academic year 2020/2021, the Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) at the University of Leeds in the UK, decided to pilot an online chat platform ‘Differ’ including a chatbot ‘Bo’ after it had seen a decline in the use of programme Facebook groups. To promote student engagement and monitor the Differ online communities, sixteen digital student mentors were recruited and trained. During the pilot, feedback was collected from students and student mentors. A mixed-methods approach was adopted to boost robustness through triangulation. Several forms of data collection methods were used: a mentimeter, an online survey, three focus group sessions and a semi-structured interview. This study sheds light on the different aspects of creating student-led online communities and provides recommendations on how to improve the uptake of students in the future.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/02601370.2022.2066213

Cites

55 of 55 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Chuang H., 2003, Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 19, 101
  2. Hobert S., 2019, 40th international conference on information systems, 1, 1
  3. O’Keeffe P, 2013, College Student Journal, 47, 605
  4. Panah E., 2020, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences, 14, 1198
  5. Sjöström J., 2018, International conference on information systems education and research, 1
  6. Studente S., 2020, International Journal of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences, 14, 768
  7. UNESCO, 2021, COVID-19: Reopening and reimagining universities, survey on higher education through the UNESCO national commissions
  8. Van Dijk J, 2020, The digital divide
  9. Zakos J., 2008, CLIVE—An artificially intelligent chat robot for conversational language practice, Artificial Intelligence: Theories, models and applicationsLecture notes in computer science 5138

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 134

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Abbas, N., Whitfield, J., Atwell, E., Bowman, H., Pickard, T., & Walker, A.
Affiliations
University of Leeds (GB)
Corresponding author
Atwell, Eric
ORCID
Venue
International Journal of Lifelong Education
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2022-05-04
Volume
41
Issue
3
Pages
308-326
ISSN
  • 0260-1370 (ISSN-L)
  • 1464-519X
DOI
10.1080/02601370.2022.2066213
OpenAlex
W4281696081
Cited by
116
References
56
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 2
FWCI
54.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • International Journal of Lifelong Education (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
  • SHURA (Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive) (Sheffield Hallam University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
work was supported
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Online and Blended Learning
  • Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
  • Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Practises and Engagement
Keywords
adult learners, student engagement, online chat, chatbots, sense of belonging, student isolation, social connectedness, Facebook groups, lifelong learning centers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review