2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The integration of conversational agents in educational settings has increased significantly in recent years, particularly within higher education institutions. Integrating these agents with Learning Management Systems (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) offers a strategic solution to challenges such as increased cognitive load and technology fatigue among students. Moreover, engineering education and education researchers play a crucial role in incorporating conversational agents within pedagogical frameworks, due to their unique position at the crossroads of technology and education. This systematized literature review aims to explore how these agents are being integrated into current educational platforms and the significant impact engineering educators can have in advancing this innovation. By employing an extensive database search, abstract review of 275 articles, and full article review of 90 articles, multiple researcher involvement, and both inductive and deductive thematic coding, this review reveals three main findings: (1) There has been a sharp increase in publications related to conversational agents over the past three years, indicating a growing interest in their development and integration, primarily outside the United States, with Python being the dominant programming language for its prototyping flexibility; (2) Platforms like Moodle, Blackboard, OLAT, and Google Classroom have the most integrations, indicating easier integration with these technologies; (3) There is a noticeable lack of discussion on learning theories among these studies, with most authors coming from computer science and STEM fields, which highlights a significant gap in interdisciplinary collaboration. This gap emphasizes the urgent need for more educational specialists and engineering educationists to ensure that conversational agents effectively enhance learning.