Chatbot Launch

Late last year, the National Institute for Student Success (NISS) at Georgia State University was awarded a $7.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Postsecondary Student Success Program to investigate how chatbots can enhance student outcomes in first-year math and English courses. The initiative, titled TEACH ME (Technology Enhanced Academic Communication Help in Math & English), will be implemented for both bachelor’s and associate level students at Georgia State, as well as partner institutions Morgan State University and the University of Central Florida. This project comes on the heels of earlier successes with the approach at GSU in Political Science and Economics courses. Researchers found that the academic chatbot significantly shifted students’ final grades; the tool increased the likelihood that students achieved a course grade of B or higher by 5-6 percentage points while also reducing the likelihood students dropped the course (Page et. al, 2023). An overwhelming majority (92%) of students in those courses  indicated that they recommended the chatbot for continued use and even further expansion. This use of the tool in academic courses built on earlier successes with AI at GSU to help students complete administrative tasks, including the 2016 launch of the Pounce Admissions chatbot. The tool significantly reduced “summer melt”—a phenomenon where students accepted to college fail to enroll in fall classes. 

After several busy months of planning, the first randomized control trials (RCTs) in the TEACH ME study have launched in math courses across Georgia State University and the University of Central Florida. RCTs will be administered through 2027 that—with the help of researchers at Brown University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Brookings Institution—will measure the impact of academic chatbots across diverse student demographics and educational contexts. 

Georgia State University launched chatbots in three gateway math courses critical for student success – Precalculus, Elementary Statistics, and Quantitative Reasoning. Across its Atlanta and Perimeter College Campuses, more than 1,000 students in 23 sections will participate in the study this fall alone. The University of Central Florida launched RCTs in Calculus with Analytic Geometry. At UCF, almost 1,500 students will be participating this fall across two lecture sections and 70 lab sections. Morgan State University will launch its first bot in 2025.  

The grant will support the deployment of AI-enhanced chatbots designed to assist students by answering questions about course material, sending reminders for upcoming assignments, and offering encouragement and study tips. The broader goal is to demonstrate that integrating chatbots into critical academic courses can help students perform better not only in those courses but also in their subsequent academic endeavors. The hope is that by supporting students in gateway math and English courses, the chatbots will provide a scalable means to improve academic success in what are some of the first-year courses most critical to student progression and subsequently increase retention and graduation.