Employers Say Students Need AI Skills. What If Students Don’t Want Them?
Student Voice survey participants indicated a variety of reasons why they didn’t want to use AI tools. Some were disdainful of the technology as a whole, and others indicated it wasn’t appropriate to use in higher education.
When asked their top three concerns about using generative AI in their education, Chegg’s survey found students were worried about cheating (52 percent), receiving incorrect or inaccurate information (50 percent), and data privacy (39 percent).
“Whether you’re very leery of this for a variety of reasons—whether they be ethical, environmental, social, economic—or enthusiastic, I think we have to occupy the space for a while and recognize it’s going to be odd and complicated,” says Chuck Lewis, writing director at Beloit College in Wisconsin.
In a recently published study in Science Direct, University of California, Irvine, researchers surveyed 1,001 students to understand their usage and concerns around using ChatGPT. Among students who held concerns, the top themes were around ethics, quality, careers, accessibility and privacy or surveillance.
Some survey respondents indicated they were concerned about unintentional plagiarism or use of ChatGPT compromising their work, which could lead to consequences from their institution.
