Abstract
Life coaching can contribute to goal attainment, quality of life, and psychological well-being enhancement. We explored the capacity of a speech-based conversational agent coach (CAC) to deliver a coaching program for goal achievement in two studies. Participants showed a significant increase in personal growth initiative (PGI) after completing the program both in the pilot and the main study. Participants in the main study additionally reported a significant increase in life satisfaction (SLS) and a significant decrease in negative affect (PANAS-N). Usability of the application, satisfaction with the coaching program, and adoption intention were rated positively in both studies. The results suggest that working on goal achievement with the CAC had a positive impact on the psychological well-being of the participants. The study provides an empirically-validated approach for automated coaching interventions and highlights the potential of conversational agents for delivering life coaching.
Highlights
Life coaching is a result-oriented process in which a coach facilitates the enhancement of life experience and goal attainment in personal and professional life (Grant, 2003)
We explored the capacity of a speech-based conversational agent coach (CAC) to deliver a coaching program for goal achievement in two studies
They generally do so in the sense of trainer, tutor, advisor, or recommender, rather than in the sense of a conversational agent that adopts the role of a life coach and delivers a full coaching program based on techniques from the field of Coaching
Summary
Life coaching is a result-oriented process in which a coach facilitates the enhancement of life experience and goal attainment in personal and professional life (Grant, 2003). Another disadvantage is the lack of a com mon metric to evaluate the replies against human judgement for conversational agents (Merdivan et al, 2020) Thanks to their rapid expansion, affordability, ability to understand and respond using natural language, and being perceived as engaging and natural (Pew Research Center, 2017), voice assistants, and speech-based conversa tional agents in general, present a great potential for a wide range of yet unexplored uses. Ferrer developed for well-being related purposes (Albaina et al, 2009; Hudlicka, 2013; Watson et al, 2012) They generally do so in the sense of trainer, tutor, advisor, or recommender, rather than in the sense of a conversational agent that adopts the role of a life coach and delivers a full coaching program based on techniques from the field of Coaching. The CAC is inspired by the foundations of Positive Technology (Riva et al, 2012), which promotes the development of emerging technologies to improve the quality of life and well-being of people
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