West Virginia University (WVU) researchers are preparing high school seniors and college students to master the coding of ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence chatbot. Research led by Gangqing “Michael” Hu, an assistant professor in the WVU School of Medicine Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cell Biology, for the paper published in Quantitative Biology aimed to reduce the students’ fear of learning code and to strengthen their critical thinking skills. Through the use of ChatGPT and its potential drawbacks, the application of the OPTIMAL model can help students overcome the obstacles they face while coding while wading in the muddy shoreline of the chatbot.
ChatGPT works by producing human-like reactions to conversations initiated as text-based conversations and is now being used by various organizations to converse with customers and give general information on a variety of topics. One of the generated outputs from ChatGPT can be code, and ChatGPT can be used in this manner as a coding tool by prompting.
Hu believes that it is vital to educate students on the purpose of this chatbot-aided learning and to encourage them to improve their problem-solving skills and critical thinking as well as use their creativity as the ChatGPT generated responses can often be incorrect or incomplete. To do this, Hu and his team invented the OPTIMAL model to assist with chatbot-aided scientific data analysis. This involves a sequence of steps to maximize communication with the chatbot. Moreover, students are required to review the whole data inputted to the chatbot and then create a draft of prompts. Subsequently, the chatbot can provide code, and the students must use their critical thinking skills to evaluate if the output is correct or not.
Hu’s research team involves students from the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology as well as WVU’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics, WVU’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, University of Texas at El Paso, and Arizona State University. Through their research, the team discovered that relying only on the chatbot for code-generating can be detrimental, and therefore, students should inspect their code at the end of each session.
Going forward, the team is continuing to assess the efficiency of OPTIMAL in improving traditional programming education for students and is furthermore researching advanced insights and strategies for perfecting the ChatGPT use in precision education.
Gangqing “Michael” Hu is a professor of the WVU School of Medicine Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology. He has dedicated his research to helping students defuse the challenges of ChatGPT and improving coding skills. Hu is a part of a large research team including fellow scientists from several universities. Together they innovated the OPTIMAL model, which is a protective mechanism to help students refrain from any inaccurate information outputted by the chatbot. It also supports students in step-by-step prompt building and giving them the confidence in utilizing the ChatGPT with accuracy.
West Virginia University (WVU) is a four-year public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia. It is part of the West Virginia University System and is the largest full-time university in the state. The principal mission of WVU is to provide quality education, research, and service. It offers a range of graduation and postgraduate programs, and in research, WVU ranks 183rd in the nation..
