AI Technology in Higher Education: A Matter of Fashion, Fetish, or Fantasy?

Dear Colleagues,

While university administrations appear unanimously enthusiastic about the robust integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into academic and pedagogical practices, the same cannot necessarily be said for faculty members. Many perceive this emerging technology as a double-edged sword, leading to conflicting and dual discourses and attitudes across campuses (Bearman et al., 2023). Moreover, researchers and teaching faculty recognise AI technology as a potential disruptor of knowledge construction (Peters  and Green, 2024), with its uncertain implications for research methodologies, pedagogical philosophies and practices that can exacerbate division, partisanship, and otherness. Ethical and privacy concerns further contribute to faculty scepticism and hesitancy towards the implementation of generative artificial intelligence into curricula, and it is usually dismissed as a merely another digital tool for teaching and learning. However, there are those who are keen to engage with the AI technology by attempting to integrate it into their research and pedagogical activities in hopes of its transformative potential for higher education (Michel-Villarreal et al., 2023).

Despite ongoing concerns and dilemmas being addressed at conferences and in publications, a certain level of optimism, and the associated initiatives, is predominantly driven by scholars in the fields of business, technology, and sciences (Neumann et al., 2023), often limiting transdisciplinary engagement and dialogue with researchers and educators in the humanities and social sciences. To prevent the widening of this disciplinary divide, reminiscent of C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’, this Special Issue seeks collaborations that can promote pluralistic, balanced and nuanced views on our understandings of, relationships to, and applications of AI technology and human–machine interactions (Possati, 2021) across the various contexts and practices in higher education. This Special Issue aims to explore, investigate and transcend pedagogical fashions, fetishes, or fantasies that risk masquerading, distorting, or entangling a complex reality between AI technology and education, which encapsulates agents and objects, shaped by the past while looking forward to a just and equitable future.

Thus, this Special Issue invites manuscripts that approach AI technology, such as generative artificial intelligence, in a variety of higher education contexts and situations. We welcome theoretical, empirical articles, and reviews that can establish connections to (but are not limited to) the following research areas:  

• Curriculum design and development;
• Digital literacy, AI literacy, and edutech;
• Ethics, academic integrity, and moral education;
• Ethos, agency, and authority in AI education;
• GenAI tools and pedagogical discourses;
• Research methods and GenAI;
• Standardized exams, AI assessment, and privacy;
• Philosophical views of AI education;
• Play theories (e.g., psychoanalysis) and AI tools;
• Learning theories to and from AI;
• Teacher identity and AI educator;
• Lifelong/adult learning and GenAI technology;
• University policies concerning GenAI.

The topics can be explored from various humanities and social science frameworks including complexity studies, network theory, pragmatism, object relation theory, psychoanalysis, classical philosophy and rhetorical studies, pedagogical theories, and modern social theories. Moreover, this Special Issue encourages manuscripts that consider qualitative and quantitative research methods such as case studies, (digital) ethnography, phenomenology, textual/discourse analysis, and systematic reviews among others.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

References:

Bearman, M., Ryan, J. & Ajjawi, R. Discourses of artificial intelligence in higher education: a critical literature review. High Educ 86, 369–385 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00937-2.

Michel-Villarreal R, Vilalta-Perdomo E, Salinas-Navarro DE, Thierry-Aguilera R, Gerardou FS. Challenges and Opportunities of Generative AI for Higher Education as Explained by ChatGPT. Education Sciences. 2023; 13(9):856. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090856.

Neumann, M. Rauschenberger and E. -M. Schön, "“We Need To Talk About ChatGPT”: The Future of AI and Higher Education," 2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Software Engineering Education for the Next Generation (SEENG), Melbourne, Australia, 2023, pp. 29-32, https://doi.org/10.1109/SEENG59157.2023.00010.

Peters, M.A., Green, B.J. Wisdom in the Age of AI Education. Postdigit Sci Educ 6, 1173–1195 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-024-00460-w.

Possati, L. (2021). The algorithmic unconscious: how psychoanalysis helps in understanding AI. Routledge.

Dr. Andrea C. Valente
Guest Editor

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• GenAI
• artificial intelligence
• digital education
• higher education
• curriculum
• pedagogy
• educational ethos
• agency
• ethics
• lifelong learning
• educational technology
• complexity
• object relation
• policies
• discourse