What happens when you mix pizza with cutting-edge technology? At Queen’s University Belfast, it leads to insightful discussions on the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in academia! I’m Hannah, a recent Law LLB graduate from QUB and the representative AHSS Student Digital Champion for the School of Law. In this post, I will summarise the responses gathered from students during our AI & Pizza event and present our comprehensive report. This report, which has been gaining external attention, gathers and analyses student perspectives on generative AI in academia, future careers, and beyond.
Research
On the 23 April 2024, the Student Digital Champions, in collaboration with the Digital Learning Team, hosted an AI & Pizza event to gather student questions, concerns, and thoughts on generative AI. In return for their responses, students who were busy studying for exams were rewarded with pizza and RedBull, who generously sponsored the event. This fueled their continued participation and prompted many answers to our questions. With over 100 responses from QUB students, we were able to fill a board with all their thoughts and comments. Inspired by Jisc’s national student report on the use of generative AI in tertiary education, the Student Digital Champions decided to create our own report based on the responses gathered from the event. This report focuses specifically on QUB and aims to provide valuable insights for both students and staff.
After compiling the comments, we found that the answers could be organised into five primary categories: general academia, academic integrity, future careers, ethical considerations, and other reflections. The following discussion highlights some of the key insights uncovered from student feedback. For a more detailed analysis, please read the full report via the link at the end of this blog.
Findings
In academia, students are generally beginning to use AI tools to enhance their learning, from generating initial ideas in response to essay questions to grammatically and stylistically refining their writing, but there are concerns about its accuracy. In contrast to the discourse within higher education institutions, we found students are, by and large, not simply generating their entire essays with AI tools, and are cautious to avoid committing academic offences, therefore often not availing themselves of the benefits of the tools. Clear guidelines are thus required to help students use AI responsibly without compromising their academic integrity, as students feel that QUB currently does not provide sufficient guidance. In terms of their future careers, students are anxious about AI’s impact on their upcoming professions, especially in creative fields, and want more training on AI’s role in the workplace. Ethical issues such as data privacy and AI biases are significant concerns among many students, highlighting the need for better preparation and awareness. Nevertheless, despite these concerns, students are generally excited and interested by AI’s potential benefits in academia and beyond.
For these reasons, academics are confident the way in which students are assessed must change again; the question remains as to how. Some staff advocate for all assessments to become in-person exams which abolish the use of generative AI in students’ assignments as they would not have access to it at the time of writing. However, this might not be feasible for present students functioning in a post-Covid era of remote learning, as many, including myself, have not taken an exam in person since finishing their GCSEs. Other academic staff promote assessment via oral presentations where, even if a student generates their content using AI tools, they will also be assessed on their delivery and ability to publicly speak. While this might boost students’ confidence and communication abilities, the reality of this type of assessment is that it will take a lot of time to conduct and might not be suited to each student’s capabilities.
For an in-depth read of our findings, check out the Student Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence 2024 Report, which has been gaining traction on LinkedIn and was presented at the National Conference on Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education (see here) at Ulster University. The AHSS Student Skills Assistants will be holding other in person events in the next academic year that will contribute to future reports and evolving guidance. Please come along and share your insights.
