The emergence of generative AI has prompted much debate, questions and concerns among the academic community – but it also offers an opportunity to rethink education, and how we learn, from the ground up.
Students have been quick to adopt and integrate GenAI into their study practices, using it as a virtual assistant to enhance and enrich their learning. At the same time, they sometimes rely on it as a substitute for their own ideas and thinking, since GenAI can complete academic tasks in a matter of seconds. While the first or even second iteration may yield a hallucinated or biased response, with prompt refinement and guidance, it can produce results very close to our expectations almost instantly.
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Students who used GenAI to write an essay exhibited lower cognitive engagement, weaker neural networks and a reduced sense of authorship over their texts, according to recent research. The findings suggest that frequent use of GenAI can have a significant cognitive cost, impacting critical thinking, memory and comprehension.
These concerns echo what educators often ask: what thoughts are genuinely the student’s own, and what has been generated or automated by the machine? This question becomes even more pressing in the context of degree programmes with professional credentials.
Yet, this technology represents a valuable ally for students and can help enhance their learning process. Through specific GenAI applications, students can adapt the material they’re studying into formats that are more engaging, or aligned with their preferred ways of learning. Additionally, AI can help organise information, identify key ideas, generate self-assessment guides to review difficult content and much more.
In this context, our university’s Educational Innovation Office, in collaboration with the School of Education, decided to conduct an initial institutional survey. The goal was to explore and understand students’ perceptions and usage of AI within their undergraduate academic experiences, with the aim of challenging myths and assumptions. Specifically, the study sought to investigate student beliefs, perceived opportunities and risks associated with this technology in their study practices and academic tasks.
In 2024, a semi-structured online survey was administered. A total of 216 students from various academic departments participated.
Preliminary results
The preliminary findings show that 48 per cent of students use AI “frequently”, and 12 per cent reported using it “always”. However, when asked to put a number on their peers’ usage, these figures increase to 61 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively – suggesting a perception that others use it more often than they do themselves.
Regarding the purposes for which students use AI – measured on a Likert scale from one to five – the top uses were:
- Searching for information (average score: 3.51)
- Creating summaries (2.81)
- Completing assignments or evaluations that require written texts (2.72)
These represent the most common uses reported by respondents.
Delving deeper, 40 per cent of students indicated that they use AI to support the ideation process, gather information and generate a first draft, which they then refine with their own input. Additionally, 36 per cent believe AI supports their academic development by clarifying concepts and procedures, and 31 per cent appreciate the time saved on repetitive or low-value tasks.
However, when asked how AI negatively impacts their academic development, 29 per cent noted a “weakening or deterioration of intellectual abilities due to AI overuse”. The main concern cited was the loss of “mental exercise” and soft skills such as writing, creativity and reasoning.
Students’ perceptions of their peers’ AI usage varied, possibly reflecting discomfort or reluctance to admit their own habits – along with a lack of clarity regarding the norms and consequences of incorporating it into their learning processes.
Although these tools can clearly enhance learning and facilitate access to information, they can also affect cognitive development, intellectual autonomy and critical thinking, making ongoing research necessary.
In the meantime, what can we as educators do to encourage responsible use?
- AI literacy: becoming familiar with its definitions, biases, modes of operation and exploring different tools will enable you to accompany your students in this new context.
- Creation of spaces for dialogue: reflect with your students around the uses of GenAI, using this space to promote a critical and responsible approach.
- Verification and validation of sources: contrast the responses provided by GenAI with academic texts, scientific research and reliable disciplinary resources.
- Metacognitive reflection: within teaching proposals, build in moments for analysing the learning process, by incorporating guiding questions into assignments.
- Design of complementary activities: propose experiences that combine production with and without the use of GenAI, so that students can compare both results and analyse differences in terms of quality and depth.
- Definition of usage guidelines: establish explicit and shared criteria for the transparent, responsible and ethical use of GenAI within our teaching proposals. To design these criteria, it may be useful to construct a traffic-light system: what uses of GenAI would I allow in my subject? Which uses of GenAI by students seem indifferent or avoidable? Which uses of GenAI would I not allow in my classroom?
From what has been presented so far, the great educational challenge lies in enabling students to take advantage of the benefits that GenAI offers, while making a critical use of it that does not undermine their own thinking. Is it possible to promote that balance, or is the shortcut more tempting? The boundary between the human and the artificial does not seem so easy to draw, but as the poet Antonio Machado once said: “Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”
Florencia Moore is director of innovation and academic planning, and Agostina Arbia is pedagogical adviser of the Directorate of Educational Innovation, both at Universidad Austral.
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