Comparing the Impact of Pedagogy-Informed Custom and General-Purpose GAI Chatbots on Students' Science Problem-Solving Processes and Performance Using Heterogeneous Interaction Network Analysis

ArXi:2604.03022v1 Announce Type: cross Problem solving plays an essential role in science education, and generative AI (GAI) chatbots have emerged as a promising tool for ing students' science problem solving. However, general-purpose chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT), which often provide direct, ready-made answers, may lead to students' cognitive offloading. Prior research has rarely focused on custom chatbots for facilitating students' science problem solving, nor has it examined how they differently influence problem-solving processes and performance compared to general-purpose chatbots.