Perceptions of tertiary educators and their students toward the integration of AI mentors to support learning

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming more commonplace across many fields and education is no exception. AI use in general has issues with trust, privacy and real world workability, these same issues surface in the field of AI in education. Mentors also have a long history with education and the goal of individual mentors may well be achievable with the use of artificial intelligence.

This study aims to explore the perceptions of tertiary educators and students toward the integration of AI Mentors to support learning. The quantitative case study used surveys to elicit teachers’ and students perceptions; the underlying paradigm that is used in this research is Bruno Latour’s Actor-network theory (ANT).

What was found is that both students and staff were open and positive about technology, but what did surface was that student had a stronger sense of technical understanding and at the same time were more cynical and standoffish about the use of AI technology in education.

The implication is that there is a discord between what the students and teachers views of AI technology in education are – further study should be carried out to pinpoint these issues if AI in education is to flourish.