The Hong Kong Society (HKS) has been organising seminars to provide continuing professional development opportunities for our members. We cordially invite you to attend the coming seminar on “Investigating the Impact of Subject-specific GenAI Chatbots on Undergraduate Language Majors: Views on Independent Learning and Academic Self-efficacy”. It will take place from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm Hong Kong Time (11:30 am – 1:00 pm UK time) on 9 April 2025. The seminar will be delivered by Dr Eric CHEUNG, who will introduce how a subject-specific “virtual teaching assistant” supported two undergraduate subjects of language studies and served as part of the students’ assessments .
Please refer to the appendix for details of the seminar.
To register for the free seminar, please send an email to info@iolhks.hk. Upon receipt of your registration, we will email you the relevant webinar link.*
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Dr Manfred Wu at +(852) 5543 8493 or info@iolhks.hk. We look forward to receiving your positive response.
* A certificate of 1.5 hour continuing professional development will be given to secondary school English teachers in Hong Kong who attended the seminar.
Seminar
Time and date: 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm Hong Kong Time (11:30 am – 1:00 pm UK time)
9 April 2025
Topic: Investigating the Impact of Subject-specific GenAI Chatbots on Undergraduate Language Majors: Views on Independent Learning and Academic Self-efficacy
Speaker: Dr Eric CHEUNG
Description:
In this talk, Dr Eric Cheung will report on how a subject-specific “virtual teaching assistant” (VTA) supported two undergraduate subjects of language studies (Sociolinguistics, and marketing writing) and served as part of the students’ assessments. The VTA, namely PersuasionGPT, has a knowledge base that includes the subject description documents and assessment guides, aside from teaching materials (e.g., lecture slides and references). PersuasionGPT does not only provide subject-specific guidance, but also advice on writing persuasively without giving the students text samples. The chatbot was also incorporated into the assessments, as the students were required to draft their written products with it, and edit the texts for originality and critical thinking.
Dr Cheung will also report on a mixed-method study that identifies the potential impact of the use of VTA on the students. The study began with a two-wave questionnaire survey before and after the introduction of PersuasionGPT. The survey focused on the students’ usage of PersuasionGPT and ability to use AI, and the items related to anxiety, learning style, motivation, and subject-related belief and stress. Of the two subjects (N=51), 27 students completed the two waves of the survey. 14 of them were invited to in-depth semi-structured interviews, surrounding the topics such as independent learning and academic self-efficacy, aside from their overall perception of subject-specific VTAs.
Preliminary findings suggest that the VTA may not directly contribute to students’ self-efficacy. However, the students considered the chatbot useful despite the steep learning curve required to use it. This is because the chatbot can provide accurate subject and assessment information, and evaluate their ideas for their assessments. More specifically, they understood better the literacy requirements of the subjects (e.g., essay formatting, language choice, citation styles) using the VTA, potentially improving their language output. That said, the students remained critical of the VTA’s responses, and believed that peer and teacher-student interactions played a more important role in their engagement and confidence in the subjects.
To conclude the talk, Dr Cheung will share his views on how language teachers can leverage customised chatbots for language teaching and assessment feedback, with a caveat that the use of VTAs should be balanced by the teacher’s agency to collect, curate and consolidate authentic content for teaching. Future works to extend the present study (e.g., investigating written products and prompts, engaging in longitudinal studies with larger student population) will also be briefly described.
About the Speakers:
Eric Cheung is Senior Lecturer at the Division of Languages and Communication, College of Professional and Continuing Education, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His main research interests are technology-enhanced language learning, teaching and teacher professional development, and academic discourse analysis informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics. He has published in top-tier journals such as Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, English for Specific Purposes and Computer Assisted Language Learning. He is also Editor of Linguistics and the Human Sciences (University of Toronto Press).
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