NSF Award
2319137
Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are affecting almost all aspects of the engineering profession. Recent developments in Generative AI (GAI) and the popularity of technologies like Grammarly, ChatGPT, GitHub CoPilot are changing the way that engineers communicate, design, code, and teach, creating efficiencies and potentially new opportunities, particularly for marginalized individuals for whom GAI technologies can lower barriers. Given the potential impact of these technologies on the engineering profession, it is imperative that engineering educators are both aware of GAI and able to use it productively for teaching and for engineering education research. This project will explore the impact of GAI technologies on the engineering research and teaching community while developing and evaluating methods as well as resources for supporting the adoption and integration of these technologies in research and teaching practices. Through this, the project will support the formation of future engineers and workforce development. In addition, given that the use of GAI is also giving rise to novel ethical challenges that need to be addressed, this work will also evaluate how engineering educators can use GAI responsibly. Whether in research, for data analysis and writing, and idea generation, or in teaching, for planning lessons or exercises. By helping the engineering education community embrace GAI in optimal ways this project will allow diverse stakeholders to take advantage of GAI. Findings from this project will be leveraged by educators to improve engineering education research and teaching with broader impact on the preparation of current and future engineers. <br/><br/>Through a combination of literature review and online data collection and analysis, the project will identify how engineering education research and teaching can potentially incorporate GAI based applications. The following specific research questions will guide the project: 1) How is GAI currently being used for research and teaching in related fields, such as computing and STEM education, and what are the implications for engineering education? 2) What is the current awareness of GAI among engineering educators in relation to their research and teaching activities? 3) What use cases and scenarios can assist with effective and responsible use of GAI for engineering education research and teaching? To address these questions, collaborative co-design workshops with researchers and educators will be undertaken. Through these workshops, scenarios for the use of GAI within engineering education will be developed and evaluated. As a next step, researchers and instructors will be asked to incorporate the scenarios into their workflow so that their usability and utility can be further assessed. Using the feedback provided by the users, the project will create and freely disseminate a set of scenarios and guidelines designed for those who do engineering education research or teach engineering. Through this project, the community will also benefit through opportunities for dialogues and debates related to the use of GAI in engineering education. This work will lay the foundation for building socio-technical infrastructure essential for facilitating effective and responsible use of GAI within engineering education. Given the potential for GAI to shape engineering education, this project can be the first iteration of a potentially larger project. Finally, the project will also contribute by identifying barriers to the use of GAIs and related technology and how that might restrict the goals of more inclusive engineering education and outline guidelines for responsible and ethical use of the technology.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
