Implementing generative AI chatbots as a decision aid for enhanced values clarification exercises in online business ethics education

Abstract

Ethical decision-making is challenging for most students. Values clarification exercises (VCEs) can help reduce decisional conflicts and feelings of regret. Scholars have suggested designing values deliberation exercises based on moral dilemma scenarios to help students to identify their values system. However, such exercises are challenging to complete for most teachers and students. Therefore, the development of artificial intelligence (AI)-supported decision aids is warranted. Studies have revealed that using a one-on-one interactive chatbot is a feasible learning strategy for improving the dialectic skills of students. Thus, this study proposed a human–machine learning framework that helps students to perform values clarification in the context of moral dilemmas. To assess the effectiveness of the framework, the present study incorporated the chatbot Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer into the business ethics course of a university to develop a generative-AI-chatbot-assisted VCE (GAIC-VCE) system for university students. In total, 70 university students were recruited and divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group completed GAIC-VCEs, whereas the control group completed conventional VCEs. The results revealed that the GAIC-VCE system effectively improved the experimental-group students’ ethical self-efficacy and ethical decision-making confidence and reduced their decisional conflicts.

Keywords

• generative ai
• chatbot
• values clarification
• decision aids
• ai learning companions