ChatGPT's capacity for simulating natural language responses and human-like conversations suggests that ChatGPT may be useful for roleplay simulation to prepare for the question-and-answer (Q&A) in oral presentations. This study investigated how undergraduate students in a business and technical communication skills course could use ChatGPT to help them anticipate questions and prepare for the Q&A session in their business pitch presentations. A thematic analysis was conducted to analyse questions that students anticipated prior to ChatGPT use, questions that were generated by ChatGPT, and actual questions that were asked during the Q&A. The questions were also mapped to the categories in Anderson and Krathwohl’s 2001 Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) to identify the level of cognitive processing necessary to answer each question. Findings suggest that ChatGPT is able to ask realistic, meaningful and probing questions that can help students prepare for their Q&A, and give students ideas about the kind of questions they as audience members could ask their classmates. However, the lack of nonverbal cues in ChatGPT-generated questions limits it application for comprehensive Q&A skill practice, particularly in responding to negatively-toned questions professionally. An interesting discovery was that students had chosen to not use ChatGPT although they had been empowered, allowed and asked to do so. This aspect deserves further exploration. Future work could also explore prompting ChatGPT to word its questions to convey different emotional undertones, such as cynicism and doubt, and to generate unexpected questions so students could specifically practice responding to such questions professionally and tactfully.

Authors:
Anita Toh, National University of Singapore, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Anita Toh is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at National University of Singapore in Singapore

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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