AI Chatbot Mobile App Lifts Usability Scores for Communication-Skills Tutoring at Peru's Universidad Privada del Norte

Motivated by regional data showing roughly 55% of Latin American students lack basic reading skills, researcher Marllury Melgarejo-Alcantara at Universidad Privada del Norte (UPN) in Lima, Peru, developed a mobile application with an integrated AI chatbot for intelligent tutoring in communication skills, using the Mobile-D agile methodology to iterate the build with teacher and student input.
The app was evaluated against usability, technology and innovation criteria (rated by teachers) and accessibility, design and security criteria (rated by student users), producing average Likert-scale scores of 4.37 and 4.39 respectively out of 5. UPN's own communications channel confirmed the graduate-led project publicly. The published study (International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 2026) reports these as perception/usability scores rather than measured gains in communication competence or literacy test outcomes.
As a single-institution build evaluated mainly on user satisfaction rather than learning outcomes, it is best read as a promising, well-documented prototype rather than proven evidence of impact at scale.

Read the full analysis: https://online-journals.org/index.php/i-jim/article/view/60717