Can AI Chatbots Provide Coaching in Engineering? Beyond Information Processing Toward Mastery
Junaid Qadir, Muhammad Adil Attique, Saleha Shoaib, Syed Ibrahim Ghaznavi

TL;DR
This paper investigates whether AI chatbots can effectively serve as coaching tools in engineering education, emphasizing mastery development over mere information delivery, and highlights the limitations and potential of AI-human collaboration.
Contribution
It introduces a multiplex coaching framework integrating human wisdom with AI, based on empirical research on AI's role and boundaries in engineering mentorship.
Findings
AI accepted for technical problem solving (mean=3.84/5)
Skepticism about AI's capacity for moral and emotional judgment
Faculty express higher concern over risks and privacy issues
Abstract
Engineering education faces a double disruption: traditional apprenticeship models that cultivated judgment and tacit skill are eroding, just as generative AI emerges as an informal coaching partner. This convergence rekindles long-standing questions in the philosophy of AI and cognition about the limits of computation, the nature of embodied rationality, and the distinction between information processing and wisdom. Building on this rich intellectual tradition, this paper examines whether AI chatbots can provide coaching that fosters mastery rather than merely delivering information. We synthesize critical perspectives from decades of scholarship on expertise, tacit knowledge, and human-machine interaction, situating them within the context of contemporary AI-driven education. Empirically, we report findings from a mixed-methods study (N = 75 students, N = 7 faculty) exploring the use…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAI in Service Interactions · Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
