A chatbot for mental health in an age of online learning
SJSU student project shows the potential of AI to address societal issues
The San Jose State University Innovation Farm asks students to build artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that fight against our greatest societal issues. During a recent session, the Student Assistant Motivator (SAM) team developed a prototype to show how chat services can be used to counter the isolation that is a factor in remote learning. Here is an overview of the solution from Alan Nguyen, Edson-Jossue Duran, Joey Hoang, Andy Ye and Jesse Chow.
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and impacted our livelihood in a number of ways. This includes all students across the world, the uncertainty of lockdowns and school closures have impacted student achievement and education. With the transition and adopting remote learning, students face a bigger issue. Many students ranging from elementary to college are struggling to stay focused and motivated during online classes. This biggest concern for online learning is the lack of social interaction, students feeling isolated and stressed thus causing mental health problems. There is no structure in place for students to get the assistance and support they need to succeed in their education.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence and chatbots, this technology has been widely adopted because they save time and effort by automating various aspects of support. With virtual agents, we can help aid and assist our future leaders with the support they need to succeed in distance learning. We created a chatbot named SAM — Student Assistant Motivator to help combat stress and demotivation for students of all ages. Students are challenged with loneliness and isolated learning and our chatbot provides the support they need to refocus on what really matters through an assortment of advice and suggestions tailored to the students needs.
What is the problem?
Remote Learning
Online or remote learning has made a significant impact on how students learn and interact in an educational environment. The use of Zoom and other online learning resources has increased the screen time usage which has caused students to face various issues as a result. Students have felt constantly overwhelmed, stressed and burned out. Nearly 75% of students have also faced Zoom fatigue and it has taken a toll on their mental health while in a classroom environment. There is also an issue in completing coursework online found in 42% of students which impacts the motivation within students and their progression along with other issues such as mental health.
Student Mental Health
For many students, virtual online classes may worsen existing mental health disorders or possibly trigger new changes in mental health and mood. Due to quarantining and virtual learning, social isolation has eliminated the opportunity for students to connect with their peers, socialize and express themselves. With schools and colleges moving to virtual learning formats, students may also feel lonely, unmotivated, or discouraged without regular social interaction. A number of studies have shown social isolation can cause higher rates of negative outcomes for the mental and physical health of individuals. Less social interaction may also increase feelings of social anxiety and pressures.
Spending a significant amount of time online can also cause fatigue in both students and teachers. This negative impact is often recognized as “Zoom Fatigue.” Part of the reason why video interactions can be so mentally draining and why Zoom Fatigue occurs, is because our brains are unable to process information in the way it’s accustomed to. Aspects like tone and pitch of voice, facial expressions, eye contact, and body language are hard to decipher when you are interacting with a person virtually. When it’s difficult to understand these conversational cues, our brain must work harder to interpret the information that it’s receiving, thus resulting in extra mental fatigue. Mental fatigue combined with the additional feeling of being unmotivated and discouraged can easily increase stress levels.
What is the solution?
To aid students through the many stressors brought on by school work that is augmented by remote learning, we decided to design a chatbot that would help students work through common issues. We established that the chatbot had three main goals: 1) target underlying issues during students’ study time, 2) provide solutions for their issues, and 3) motivate them to take care of their mental health and strive for their goals. Therefore, the chatbot begins by helping students figure out what issues they may be currently experiencing and provides solutions accordingly. The user can then work through a number of solutions until they are satisfied with their issue, or can choose to work through a different problem they may be having. The chatbot’s main focus is to provide solutions that can become long term routines to students’ school work.
How does it work?
To appeal to students, our chatbot needed to be different from other mental health awareness pamphlets and programs. To stand out from the crowd, SAM introduces itself and begins by asking students how they are currently feeling. Based on the response, the student would get a variety of replies that are empathetically thought of by other students just as themselves. The lingo SAM utilizes is laid back and doesn’t try to sound too professional in hopes of appealing to the students of today’s age and connecting with them. We don’t want students to feel awkward or uncomfortable when speaking to SAM and want them to feel heard on the issues they are having. We want students to find solutions they can count on and use again and again. These solutions were essentially curated by students, for students.
What problems does it solve?
The most important component within the design thinking process for SAM was the solutions that would be provided for students. Not every student is the same and not every student experiences the same issues. Therefore, the easiest way to figure out what solutions SAM can provide for students, was to ask students themselves what are some common issues they face through remote learning and school in general.
After classmate interviews and independent research, our team found commonalities of feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, hungry, lack of motivation and time constrained. Once these common issues were established, implementing solutions that SAM could provide, became much easier. SAM provides a range of solutions for students struggling with each issue. When feeling hungry SAM provides students with links to popular food delivery services, links to popular grocery delivery services and healthy recommendations for snacks that have proven to increase focus during study times. These solutions branch out in a variety of ways for students to try out different techniques and resources to help with each issue.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and challenged our future leaders as they progress through the school year. It is vital that our students stay motivated, engaged, and forced on their academics and education. We developed a prototype called SAM — Student Assistant Motivator to help mitigate the challenges that students are experiencing with remote learning. In efforts to decrease stress and increase motivation in order to improve mental health and well-being during these unprecedented times. In the next step, we plan to further develop our chatbot with more resources, take on professional mental health experts, and scale our virtual agent to help all students and give them the support they need to be their best.
