Keywords
Chatbot, Research Participation, HCI

Technologies
HuggingFace, smoll2, React, Node, SPSS

This project designed and evaluated a chatbot for research onboarding, the process by which participants are introduced to research procedures and expectations. It also examined how well the chatbot could onboard research participants in comparison to human researchers across comprehension and experience.

Research studies involving biological sample collection (e.g. stool) face recruitment and retention challenges, with social and emotional barriers such as embarrassment noted. Chatbots offer a scalable solution, but it remains unclear whether they can reduce these barriers and produce a positive experience in a research participation context. Sixty participants aged 18 to 25 completed onboarding with a chatbot or human researcher reporting, affective experience, task self efficacy, embarrassment and perceived agency.

The chatbot condition showed lower embarrassment but higher negative affect, while the human condition showed higher positive affect and relational competence. These findings indicate reducing discomfort alone is not sufficient to improve experience, and highlight the importance of relational processes in participant engagement.