Artificial Intelligence as a component of a self-instructional course in distance university education: A pilot experience

Abstract

Artificial intelligence identified as a means or tool of technological and virtual advancement is currently used in different scenarios, one of which is education as a source of generating ideas, information and knowledge. Incorporating it into the teaching-learning process takes on a unique importance, even more so in self-instructional courses, in which the student is autonomous in his learning, this help as a virtual tutor is significant. In this context, the present research validates the level of satisfaction that 261 distance learning university students have regarding the virtual tutor with AI as a component of a self-instructional course of the Business Faculty at a Private University in Peru. The pilot experience belongs to a descriptive - correlational study, with six dimensions to measure the level of satisfaction. Firstly, the descriptive results show that 53% of students are satisfied with the virtual tutor, while 5% indicate dissatisfaction. Secondly, the correlational-causal results indicate a moderate positive relationship between the level of satisfaction of the virtual tutor and academic performance. On the other hand, the structural equation model with the results of the CFI = 1.000, RMSEA = .019 and TLI = .999 validates the dimensions of “frequency of use”, “management and adaptation”, “usefulness of the response” and “prompt management” are those necessary to measure the satisfaction of the pilot experience.