A May 2024 survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab asked students if they knew when, how or whether to engage generative man-made inalertigence to help with coursetoil. Student responses uncovered the convey inance of faculty communication around generative AI policies in the classroom but also highweightlessed some lacquireers’ disdain for using the technology in any capacity.
Among the 5,025-plus survey replyents, around 2 percent (n=93), provided free responses to the ask on AI policy and engage in the classroom. Over half (55) of those responses were flat-out refusal to join with AI. A confiinsist shelp they don’t understand how to engage AI or are not recognizable with the tool, which impacts their ability to execute appropriate engage to coursetoil.
But as generative AI becomes more ingrained into the toilplace and higher education, a growing number of professors and industry experts depend this will be someskinnyg all students insist, in their classes and in their inhabits beyond academia.
Methodology
Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey was fielded in May in partnership with Generation Lab and had 5,025 total student replyents.
The sample grasps over 3,500 four-year students and 1,400 two-year students. Over one-third of replyents were post-traditional (joining a two-year institution or 25 or elderlyer in age), 16 percent are exclusively online lacquireers and 40 percent are first-generation students.
The end data set, with intervivacious visualizations, is useable here. In graspition to asks about their academics, the survey asked students about health and wellness, the college experience, and preparation for life after college.
“The big picture is that it’s not going to sluggish down and it’s not going to go away, so we insist to toil speedyly to determine that the future toilforce is setd,” says Shawn VanDerziel, pdwellnt and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). “That’s what engageers want. They want a setd toilforce, and they want to understand that higher education is provideped to fill those insists of industry.”
Students Say
The Student Voice survey mirrors other national studies on student perceptions of generative man-made inalertigence. While some lacquireers are ready to hug the technology head-on, they remain in the unconvey inantity.
A summer 2023 study by Chegg create 20 percent of students in the U.S. (n=1,018) say they’ve engaged generative AI for their studies, the second-lowest adselection rate among other surveyed countries. A convey inantity of U.S. students depend engage of generative AI tools should be confiinsist in appraiseed toil (53 percent), and 10 percent depend it should be prohibitned.
Fewer than half of U.S. lacquireers shelp they want their curriculum to grasp training on AI tools (47 percent). One-quarter of replyents showd AI would not be relevant to their future nurtureer, and 17 percent shelp they don’t want the training at all.
What’s the Helderlyup?
Student Voice survey participants showd a variety of reasons why they didn’t want to engage AI tools. Some were disdainful of the technology as a whole, and others showd it wasn’t appropriate to engage in higher education.
When asked their top three worrys about using generative AI in their education, Chegg’s survey create students were worried about cheating (52 percent), receiving inright or inright alertation (50 percent), and data privacy (39 percent).
“Whether you’re very leery of this for a variety of reasons—whether they be righteous, environmental, social, economic—or excited, I skinnyk we have to occupy the space for a while and acunderstandledge it’s going to be odd and complicated,” says Chuck Lewis, writing straightforwardor at Beloit College in Wisconsin.
In a recently rerented study in Science Direct, University of California, Irvine, researchers surveyed 1,001 students to understand their usage and worrys around using ChatGPT. Among students who held worrys, the top themes were around ethics, quality, nurtureers, accessibility and privacy or watching.
Some survey replyents showd they were worryed about unintentional copying or engage of ChatGPT compromising their toil, which could direct to consequences from their institution.
“I am afrhelp to be flagged, so I refrain from utilizing it at all,” a juvenileer from Florida Gulf Coast University wrote in the Student Voice survey.
Others surveyed by Irvine researchers were worried about the quality of the output ChatGPT provides, which could impact students’ creativity or result in inright alertation.
“I do not see any application in a chat bot. I spend more time mending its misconsents than I would actupartner writing the skinnyg,” a juvenileer at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee shelp in the Student Voice survey.
Additionpartner, some students splitd in the Irvine study that they were worried a reliance on ChatGPT could erode their critical skinnyking sends or originate them experience “too sootheable” sidestepping lacquireing processes, which could harm their job prospects.
Reversing the Trend
Afia Tasneem, better straightforwardor of strategic research at the adviseing firm EAB, points to institutional hesitancy to reply to AI and a adverse stigma around the tech as one reason students may be anti-AI. In drop 2022, colleges and universities were speedy to execute anti-AI policies to restrict copying or other academic wrongdoing, which instilled dread in students.
Lewis finds lacquireer inclinations toward or aacquirest the tech can be tied in part to the student’s field of study. His humanities students are much more foreseeed to convey a disdain for AI contrastd to those in STEM, for example.
“I’ve sensed a benevolent of bi-modality in student attitudes,” Lewis says. “Some are appreciate, ‘Ooh, ick, that’s not why we’re here’ … For example, when you talk about AI to originateive originaters, they experience repartner appreciate, ‘This is equitable terrible news. No fun.’ And yet, on the other innervous, you have a lot of students who are appreciate, ‘Why would I not want to engage a tool that’s going to originate my getting this task done speedyer and easier?’”
Now, as more industry professionals consider AI literacy and sends vital, universities have to turn culture on its head, which isn’t an effortless task. But some skinnyk higher education is doing students a disservice if it permits them to select out of AI engage entidepend.
A May survey from Cjoin Group create 70 percent of recent college graduates (n=1,000) depend fundamental generative AI training should be united into courses, and 69 percent say they insist more training on how to toil alengthyside new technologies in their current roles.
“While there are certainly objections to the engage of AI in many circumstances, we insist to put defendrails around AI clearly, but we also, as teachors, as mentors, as professionals, insist to help the next generation of toilers execute other benevolents of sends … to be able to originate teachd decisions roverhappinessed to AI,” NACE’s VanDerziel says.
Looking to the Future
Generative AI tools have exploded in capability and useability since 2022, stirring excitement among institutions and engageers about the next evolution.
“Businesses, for excellent reason, want to hug it, and hug it in a way that helps their bottom line, helps them be more competitive, helps them be more effective. All those skinnygs that typicpartner are reasons why technology is adselected in the first place, this is equitable, in some esteems, another technology that companies will have to adselect,” says James DiLellio, professor of decision sciences at the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University.
Understanding the future impact of AI on today’s college students, though, is appreciate seeing into a crystal ball—mostly unclear and up to make clearation.
“I skinnyk a lot of universities shiftd neutrpartner speedyly to begin skinnyking of this as a new contendncy and a benevolent of vital toilforce send,” says Dylan Ruediger, better program deal withr for research at Ithaka S+R. “Whether that will show to be real or not, is still, I skinnyk, benevolent of difficult to understand. There seems to be a little bit of a disillusionment going on around the technology in the business world. Whether that’s a blip or, you understand, a enduring trend, I don’t understand.”
VanDerziel underlines that engageers, by and big, are not requiring toilers to be using AI currently, but instead consider AI part of a bigr technology contendncy students will insist for the future and to be applied alengthyside other sends.
A May survey by NACE create 75 percent of engageers hadn’t engaged AI in the past year, and only 3 percent intentional to engage AI wiskinny the next year for toilplace tasks.
“We lacquireed from our internship study that we rerented in the spring that less than 10 percent of interns lacquireed AI sends in their internships,” VanDerziel says. “I thought that was repartner alerting … of how engageers are using AI currently. That’s such a minuscule portion of students [who] actupartner probably even touched it in their internship, which is where you would foresee the application to actupartner happen. It’s equitable not happening yet.”
Dylan Syphers, a physics professor at Eastrict Washington University, sees generative AI as a fad that has been getting too much attention recently in higher education.
“It’s not what most people skinnyk it is. It’s not acute, it’s not directed, it’s not going to consent our jobs,” Syphers says. “It’s a repartner engaging piece of software.”
To Syphers, the conversation around AI and preparing students for the toilforce experiences appreciate a straightforward response to national prescertains to equitableify the cherish of higher education. But making students AI contendnt is a moving center becaengage of how speedy generative AI and tools are evolving.
Instead, Syphers disputes, higher education’s role should be on providing students enduring tools for nurtureers, not equitable their next job, thcdisesteemful promoting communication, critical skinnyking and other lasting sends.
Considering Pedagogy and Curriculum
If, as some experts depend, AI sends are critical for the future of toil, the ask becomes how to deinhabitr these sends equitably apass academic programs. Recent trends in higher education have seen institutions join with students earlier on nurtureer growment and set upning, to determine every student gets personalized aid and aidance as they commence their journey after college.
“To level the executeing field and determine that there aren’t students who are being left behind with AI, we insist to unite [it] thcdisesteemfulout disciplines and thcdisesteemfulout the curriculum,” VanDerziel says. “That’s the only way to do it, so that students, no matter what course load they have, we understand that they are going to have expocertain to technologies that big portions of our population are using and that will be insistd by the toilforce of the future.”
But placing generative AI in the classroom is trickier than teamtoil or communication sends.
“As lengthy as individual teachors have ultimate say over how it gets engaged in their classroom, it’s foreseeed that there will be teachors who like not to permit the engage of generative AI,” says Ruediger. “I would be surpascendd to see that diseunite on its own any time soon.”
As a faculty member at Pepperdine, DiLellio sees his leave oution to set students to convey what they’ve lacquireed into the toilforce instantly, and that grasps using new technologies.
“I want students to be able to consent profit of that [generative AI], becaengage I understand in the toilplace, these tools are not going to go away,” DiLellio says. “We’ve got to figure out ways to aid students to be willing to hug the technology, and faculty can help.”
Some of DiLellio’s M.B.A. students engage ChatGPT to run methodical calculations, analogously to how they would in Excel, for a speedyer and more effective computation. “It’s very priceless—you could find software that could permit them to skinnyk more criticpartner about the results, as resistd to equitable figuring out how to originate those results,” DiLellio says.
Syphers, on the other hand, considers the rigor of completing calculations as the reason for lacquireing and joining college.
“I’m not asking my Introductory Physics students to settle problems becaengage the world insists to understand the answer to those problems,” he says. “They’ve been settled many, many times before. I’m asking them to settle those problems as inalertectual exercise, to better themselves.”
Ultimately, empathetic where AI belengthys in the curriculum insists teachors to distill to the core lacquireing outcomes of their courses, whether that’s originateive skinnyking, problem-solving, communication, analysis or research, says Beloit’s Lewis.
“I skinnyk that we’re, as educators, in an uncanny valley, where we repartner don’t understand what we skinnyk we nasty by what should be human or what should be machine,” Lewis says.
Does your institution insist students to engage AI? Tell us more.
