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Developing Chatbots for Sustainability: Experiential Learning in an Undergraduate Business Course
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Describes a Fall 2023 experiential learning module in which 45 undergraduate business MIS students learned AI by building no-code IBM Watson Assistant chatbots addressing local sustainability problems, evaluated with a retrospective post-then-pre survey.
Problem
Little research exists on effective pedagogy for teaching AI to undergraduate business MIS students, and even less on teaching the societal impacts of AI such as AI for social good.
Approach
Students learn AI through no-code chatbot labs (IBM Watson Assistant) and then build chatbots for community sustainability issues framed by UN SDGs, culminating in a gamified social startup pitch competition.
Key results
- Self-efficacy items 1-7 rose significantly post-project, with mean differences from 1.18 to 1.87 (p<0.01).
- Attitude items 10, 12, 14-16 rose significantly (mean differences 0.58 to 0.74, p<0.01).
- Sustainability awareness items 29-31 rose significantly (mean differences 0.82 to 0.97, p<0.01); items on AI danger showed no significant change.
Measured effects reported in the paper
| What was changed | Where | Measured | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: AI self-efficacy | Mean difference (post-pre): 1.87**, 1.42**, 1.4**, 1.45**, 1.18**, 1.26**, 1.45** | Helped |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: attitudes toward AI | Mean difference (post-pre): 0.71**, 0.58**, 0.68**, 0.74**, 0.66** | Helped |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: intention to use and learn AI | Mean difference (post-pre): 1.03**, 1.08**, 0.92**, 1.08**, 1**, 0.76**, 0.82**, 0.95**, 1**, 1**, 0.92**, 0.92** | Helped |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: sustainability awareness and confidence to innovate | Mean difference (post-pre): 0.82**, 0.97**, 0.9** | Helped |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: fear of AI | Mean difference (post-pre): 0 | No clear effect |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: belief that AI will destroy humankind | Mean difference (post-pre): -0.05 | No clear effect |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: belief that AI will cause job losses | Mean difference (post-pre): 0.00 | No clear effect |
| Implement hands-on chatbot labs and sustainability projects | Undergraduate business MIS students · Fall 2023 MIS course survey: perception that AI is dangerous | Mean difference (post-pre): 0.13 | No clear effect |
Surprising findings
- Perceptions of AI danger (items 8, 9, 11, 13) did not change significantly, which the authors interpret as a sign of critical thinking from studying AI ethics.
Limitations
- Small pilot sample of 33 valid survey responses from a single course at one institution.
- Retrospective self-reported measures may be biased; no control group.
- Focuses only on chatbot prototyping and does not cover the environmental cost of AI computation.
Experimental setup
Datasets: Student retrospective post-then-pre survey responses (N=33 after cleaning)
Metrics: mean difference (post-pre) on 5-point Likert items paired-sample t-test with bootstrapping (1,000 resamples) p-value
Builds on: Five Big Ideas of AI Kong et al. AI literacy framework Green IS
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