Application of the chatbot in university education: a bibliometric analysis of indexed scientific production in Scopus, 2013-2023

Abstract

Universities today are employing tools based on artificial intelligence to improve the educational service in general. The chatbot represents an online communicative interaction tool which contributes to solving daily queries required by students, teachers or graduates. However, there are few bibliometric review studies on the chatbot that show in which areas there is a greater concentration or lack of scientific production at the university level. The objective of this article is to explore and describe the research trends regarding the application of the chatbot in university education through the bibliometric analysis of publications indexed to Scopus. The research is of an exploratory-descriptive level, developed under a quantitative approach. The study covered the scientific production between the years 2013 and 2023, identifying 210 manuscripts. It was identified that there is a growing trend in scientific production, particularly in scientific articles and conference papers. The most cited article was published in 2018 and has 162 citations. Therefore, it is concluded that there is a greater concentration in the scientific production of manuscripts focused on improving the university educational service, applying significantly to the improvement of academic performance, administrative management and university wellbeing. However, there is a gap that needs to be reduced in terms of the lack of scientific studies in which the chatbot is used as a tool to identify the satisfaction of university students. In addition, there is a lack of research on the use of a regulatory framework that regulates the application of the chatbot at the university level.