Towards inclusive intelligence: a comprehensive examination of GenAI attitudes among HE stakeholders (2024)
The Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh Napier and Heriot-Watt were awarded an AdvanceHE Collaborative Development Fund grant to conduct research on staff and student perspectives on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in higher education (HE), from January to July 2024.
The research aimed to understand what may influence students and staff when deciding to engage, or not, with GenAI tools and how they can be supported to use these tools responsibly, ethically and effectively.
Key Findings:
- GenAI Adoption Varies with 30% of participants using GenAI tools frequently, but 43% rarely or never engage with it.
- Academic staff are more hesitant than students and professional services staff
- 57% of GenAI users leverage it for summarising, explaining concepts, and generating ideas. However, concerns about accuracy, ethics, and bias remain.
- Professional services staff were the most frequent users of GenAI
- Academic staff perceived the least productivity gains from GenAI
- Many academic staff believe GenAI use could lead to academic misconduct, but only a minority of students share this view
- Most students think it is unacceptable for academic staff to use GenAI for marking and feedback, but were accepting of GenAI being used for other aspects of their roles
- While most universities have GenAI policies, 47% of students responders were unaware of them, highlighting a need for better communication.
- Training Needs Identified for both staff and students on fact-checking, ethical use, and prompt engineering to use AI effectively.
Project outputs:
We encourage institutions to use the resource cards (linked below) to facilitate conversations with staff and students on the use of GenAI in an ethical, responsible and effective manner. The resource cards are Creative Commons licenced so if you reuse, remix or share these please do so within the terms of licence. We’d love to hear feedback on how you’ve used them.
What's next?
As AI continues to evolve, universities must balance innovation with academic integrity, providing clear guidance and upskilling opportunities for both staff and students.
If you’ve questions or feedback about the research or the outputs please get in touch at genai-education@abdn.ac.uk