University students' attitudes toward AI and the use of AI in higher education: A multivariate analysis


Adhika Ezra, University of Regina; Henry Chow, University of Regina

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be broadly defined as “systems designed by humans that, given a complex goal, act in the physical or digital world by perceiving their environment, interpreting the collected structured or unstructured data, reasoning on the knowledge derived from this data and deciding the best action(s) to take to achieve the given goal” (European Commission’s High-level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, 2018). AI has been showing its promise in supporting the fields of healthcare, transportation, businesses, and more. Without a doubt, the proliferation of AI in education has the potential to provide many benefits such as improving academic performance by providing new ways to engage with materials, personalizing the learning experience for students, increasing the effectiveness of teaching, decreasing the grading burden for teachers through automated assessments, and reducing inequalities by expanding knowledge accessibility (Akgun and Greenhow, 2022; Pedro et al., 2019; Chiu et al., 2023). At the same time, AI poses serious ethical issues such as issues of transparency, privacy, accountability, human rights, automation, accessibility, and democracy (Siau and Wang, 2020). AI has also failed to function ethically on various occasions, due to the scarce knowledge regarding the consequences of AI, the lack of thoughtfulness in integrating ethical considerations into the use of AI, and the non-binding ethical codes produced by institutions (Hagendorff, 2020). As well, there are also additional risks to consider in education, such as the potential for AI to produce inaccurate information, to pose additional security risks, and for students to claim the work of AI as their own (Cardona, Rodríguez, and Ishmael, 2023), causing various countries to approach AI differently. While some are working towards integrating AI into the education system, others are restricting the use of AI entirely (“AI in education”, 2023). Regardless of the approach taken, there is a need to create an updated curriculum that takes AI into consideration (“Future-ready”, n.d.). The students perspectives provide key insights that can support the creation of a curriculum sensitive to the proliferation of AI in education, which can also lead to the creation of ethical guidelines for using AI in general. To better understand the students’ perspectives on AI, a campus survey of undergraduate students was undertaken in a Western Canadian city during the academic year 2023-24. Based on the findings from the survey, this paper will (1) examine respondents’ experience in using AI and (2) disentangle the key factors contributing to respondents’ general attitudes toward AI and the use of AI in higher education using ordinary least-squares and logistic regression.

This paper will be presented at the following session: