The Impact of Chatbot Modalities on Critical Thinking, Digital Trust, and User Attitude in Higher Education

Abstract

This study investigates how chatbot interaction modalities—text, voice, or avatar—affect university students’ critical thinking (CT), digital trust (DT), and user attitudes (UA) within an educational context. Building on a Design Science Research approach, an experimental chatbot artifact was developed, incorporating a hybrid dialogue system (Dialogflow CX and GPT-4) within a content-neutral, debate-oriented scenario to ensure rigorous experimental control and pedagogical relevance. A cross-sectional experiment was conducted with 90 university students, who were randomly assigned to one of the three chatbot modalities.