Black Rebecca W, Tomlinson Bill
Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 14;15(1):8799. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-92937-2.
University students have begun to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in many different ways in their undergraduate education, some beneficial to their learning, and some simply expedient to completing assignments with as little work as possible. This exploratory qualitative study examines how undergraduate students used AI in a large General Education course on sustainability and technology at a research university in the United States in 2023. Thirty-nine students documented their use of AI in their final course project, which involved analyzing conceptual networks connecting core sustainability concepts. Through iterative qualitative coding, we identified key patterns in students' AI use, including higher-order writing tasks (understanding complex topics, finding evidence), lower-order writing tasks (revising, editing, proofreading), and other learning activities (efficiency enhancement, independent research). Students primarily used AI to improve communication of their original ideas, though some leveraged it for more complex tasks like finding evidence and developing arguments. Many students expressed skepticism about AI-generated content and emphasized maintaining their intellectual independence. While some viewed AI as vital for improving their work, others explicitly distinguished between AI-assisted editing and their original thinking. This analysis provides insight into how students navigate AI use when it is explicitly permitted in coursework, with implications for effectively integrating AI into higher education to support student learning.
大学生已开始在本科教育中以多种不同方式使用人工智能（AI），有些方式对他们的学习有益，而有些方式仅仅是为了尽可能轻松地完成作业。这项探索性定性研究考察了2023年美国一所研究型大学的本科生在一门关于可持续性与技术的大型通识教育课程中是如何使用人工智能的。39名学生在他们的课程期末项目中记录了自己对人工智能的使用情况，该项目涉及分析连接核心可持续性概念的概念网络。通过迭代定性编码，我们确定了学生使用人工智能的关键模式，包括高阶写作任务（理解复杂主题、寻找证据）、低阶写作任务（修改、编辑、校对）以及其他学习活动（提高效率、独立研究）。学生主要使用人工智能来改善他们原创观点的表达，不过也有一些学生将其用于更复杂的任务，比如寻找证据和展开论证。许多学生对人工智能生成的内容表示怀疑，并强调要保持自己的学术独立性。虽然一些学生认为人工智能对提高他们的作业水平至关重要，但另一些学生明确区分了人工智能辅助编辑和他们的原创思维。该分析深入了解了学生在课程作业中明确允许使用人工智能时是如何应对的，这对将人工智能有效整合到高等教育中以支持学生学习具有启示意义。
