Abstract
The emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) has sent shock waves throughout the global education communities. Adding to the emerging field of how Generative AI has impacted the various aspects in higher education, such as university guidelines (e.g., Moorhouse et al., 2023), instructors’ changing roles (e.g., Chan & Tsi, 2024), and their readiness to use AI (e.g., Kohnke et al., 2023), this study explores the subject-discipline specific professional Generative AI competence (P-GenAI-C) of university instructors in Hong Kong. P-GenAI-C encompasses instructors’ understanding of how AI works and the implications of AI on students’ learning, possessing the pedagogical capability to teach with AI, demonstrating critical and ethical awareness of using these tools, and ability to prepare students to use the Gen AI tools to support their learning. The corresponding information is collected from 123 instructors across different disciplines through an online mixed-method survey and from 30 instructors through a self-nominated semi-structured interview. Findings suggest that there is no significant difference of P-GenAI-C between instructors from different subject disciplines. It is found that there is a discrepancy between instructors’ knowledge of how to use the GenAI tools themselves and how to leverage these tools to enhance teaching and learning. It is therefore proposed that there should be more case sharing of how different instructors utilise these tools in their classrooms. Furthermore, while instructors from all disciplines perceived a high level of impacts that Generative AI posed to their disciplines and they perceived a high necessity for students to possess AI skills for their future jobs, instructors do not strongly encourage students to use AI for learning due to concerns regarding ethical issues of AI and students’ development of critical thinking skills and core content knowledge. It is therefore proposed that one of the ways to enhance instructors’ P-GenAI-C is to increase their confidence and develop their strategies in counteracting the ethical concerns and students’ learning concerns brought by GenAI.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 5 Dec 2024 |
Event | 19th eLearning Forum Asia, eLFA 2024 - Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Duration: 4 Dec 2024 → 5 Dec 2024 https://www.elfasia.org/2024/ https://chtl-bu.hkbu.edu.hk/elfa2024/prog/ |
Conference
Conference | 19th eLearning Forum Asia, eLFA 2024 |
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Abbreviated title | eLFA 2024 |
Country/Territory | Hong Kong |
Period | 4/12/24 → 5/12/24 |
Internet address |