There has been a tsunami of work policing the use of AI in HE assessment, but far less casting insight on how AI use makes students feel.
Glenys Oberg from the University of Southern Queensland and a posse of research stars dispersed across the Eastern Seaboard have looked at optimism and excitement prior to students engaging with AI, deteriorating into scepticism and worry for many as they started to put LLMs to use.
Drawing on a survey of more than 8,000 students as well as focus groups involving 79, Dr Oberg and colleagues found that AI use prompted a range of emotional responses and ethical questions for students.
“What we find is that students are not simply “for” or “against” AI. They are navigating complex and often conflicting feelings such as excitement, guilt, anxiety, and relief, particularly in relation to assessment, learning, and authorship,” Dr Oberg said.
“These emotions are shaped by institutional climates and policy signals, and in turn influence how students position themselves as learners.”
The authors found that students needed support as they navigated moral decisions relating to AI and that institutional efforts to enforce rules had leveraged feelings of price, shame and moral anxiety in an attempt to drive assessment compliance.
“It speaks to a broader shift: AI is not just a technical or pedagogical issue, but a relational and affective one”,” Dr Oberg said.
“If institutions respond only through rules and enforcement, they risk missing how students are actually making sense of these tools and the implications this has for trust, belonging, and learning.
Many student participating in the research were keen to defend the authenticity and value of their own creativity and voice. “Many students defended the sanctity of their “voice” in writing with what we can only call emotional vehemence,” the authors write.
Ultimately, the research supports the need to strengthen education around boundaries for AI use to support students emotionally and ethically.
“We argue for a shift toward critical affective literacy in HE to foster spaces for emotional and ethical dialogue that enable pedagogical trust and support students as reflective, morally engaged learners,” the authors conclude.