Enterprise AI Analysis

2 Research Approach and Progress

I use a mixed-methods approach to research, including surveys, research through design (RtD), and interview studies.

My early research works to understand how educators perceive CEE, which provides a basis for discussing the importance of CEE as a central topic in the computing curriculum. I studied the opinions of undergraduate computing educators, computing teaching assistants (CTAs), and administrators for master's computing programs through a series of surveys. All surveys showed a strong support for CEE. In my survey of U.S.-based undergraduate computing educators, 57.1% (n=153) of those surveyed stated that ethics should be included in the undergraduate curriculum in both standalone and integrated formats. Importantly, this survey was conducted largely before GenAI became commonplace in higher education contexts, providing a snapshot of educators' perceptions of CEE before GenAI and an opportunity for comparison to the groups' perceptions today [2]. A survey of master's level computing program administrators found that 72.2% (n=52) of those surveyed agrees ethics should be required at the master's level [5]. And, in a survey of CS TAs, all but one TA respondent felt that ethics is an important topic in the computing curriculum [3].

Through my ongoing work, I seek to understand CTAs' perceptions on AI and the role it could play as a teaching tool. CTAs' perspectives are notable due to their dual role as both students and educators, thereby understanding some of the challenges and benefits for both stakeholders. Thus far, we have found that CTAs are highly invested in the "humanistic" elements of their job, such as inspiring students directly [4]. Following these findings, my work in progress includes speculative design workshops with CTAs, asking them to consider how they might use GenAI as a teaching tool to give them more time to focus on those "human" elements of their role and what ethical concerns doing so may pose.

Future work may focus on the unique perspective CEE educators have at the intersection of computing and ethics education. I want to understand their perspective on GenAI tools in higher education, including how to use it as a teaching tool, how to educate computing students about the ethical implications of the tool, and how the introduction of GenAI tools to higher education may impact the importance of CEE. I plan to do so first through a survey, to understand how perspectives on CEE may have changed since the data in my early work ([2]) was collected, then through a series of design workshops where CEE educators will create sample syllabi and modules relating to the ethics of GenAI. Through the doctoral consortium, I hope to receive feedback on the research direction of this phase.