Comparing the Impact of Pedagogy-Informed Custom and General-Purpose GAI Chatbots on Students' Science Problem-Solving Processes and Performance Using Heterogeneous Interaction Network Analysis

Researchers compared custom pedagogy-informed AI chatbots with general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT for science education, finding that custom chatbots using Socratic questioning methods increased student cognitive engagement and reduced cognitive offloading. The study analyzed 3,297 student-chatbot dialogues from 48 secondary school students, showing higher interaction intensity with custom chatbots despite similar problem-solving performance outcomes.