Using voice-enabled AI chatbot to improve academic presentation skills

Presenting research is as important as conducting research; requiring novice researchers to practice and review their presentations continuously. Given the limited time in language classrooms, developing impactful presentation skills is difficult. Tools like AI chatbots could help overcome this challenge. While research shows AI tools aid in developing oral proficiency, there is limited empirical evidence on the effectiveness of voice-enabled chatbots for improving academic presentation skills. This study investigates the effectiveness of a voice-enabled chatbot ‘Oratio’, in enhancing academic presentation skills, mainly the lexicogrammatical and structural features. The study also explores the possibility of Oratio reducing the students’ anxiety related to giving academic oral presentations. The participants of this experimental study were 20 Master of Philosophy, first and second year students from the English department at a public university in Pakistan. Pre-intervention and post-intervention presentations were assessed using a rubric designed by the researchers. The experimental group used Oratio and the control group did not use any interventions to support their presentation skills improvement. The Wilcoxon signed rank test showed no significant improvement in the pretest and post-test results in the control and experimental groups; however, there is a marked improvement reflected by the median scores in the postintervention performance for all the participants. Using Oratio appears to have helped students build their confidence by improving lexicogrammatical and structural issues in their presentations. Although this pilot study has limitations, it illustrates the potential of using voice-enabled AI chatbots in improving academic oral presentation skills of novice researchers.