ERIC Number: EJ1474431
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jul
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0098-6283
EISSN: EISSN-1532-8023
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Generative AI in Higher Education: Uncertain Students, Ambiguous Use Cases, and Mercenary Perspectives
Teaching of Psychology, v52 n3 p347-356 2025
Background: Students in higher education are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) despite mixed messages and contradictory policies. Objective: This study helps answer outstanding questions about many aspects of AI in higher education: familiarity, usage, perceptions of peers, ethical/social views, and AI grading. Method: I surveyed 733 undergraduates. Results: Students reported mixed levels of experience with AI and tended toward nervousness over excitement. Most reported professors addressing AI but not integrating it. While 41% of students had used AI in ways explicitly banned, many more students (59%) reported ambiguous use cases. Students overestimated peer cheating, and this predicted their own cheating, as did general experience with and excitement about AI. Meanwhile, 11% of students reported false accusations, with first-generation students possibly at a higher rate. Pragmatic views about career and inequality may be affecting behaviors. Men consistently reported more involvement with AI than women. Conclusion: Future research should focus on the hybrid collaboration of humans and AI and how AI might be leveraged to support and scaffold genuine learning. Teaching Implications: AI will be relevant to many future careers, and students increasingly want it to be part of their education. Academic integrity will be a continuing challenge, and students need transparency.
Descriptors: Artificial Intelligence, Man Machine Systems, Natural Language Processing, Technology Uses in Education, Undergraduate Students, Student Attitudes, Gender Differences, Ethics, Cheating, Bias, Online Courses
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/rfp5k/?view_only=6c7f704f8621421d82ec35f1a19e9d34
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Psychological Science, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA