AI in higher education Students’ access, perceptions and utilization

Abstract

This study examines the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education emphasizing the effects of the spread of ChatGPT and related generative AI tools on Hungarian university students, particularly in the humanities, social sciences, and pedagogy. 1,027 students were included in the large-scale empirical study- It was found that while most students (87.2%) have utilized AI tools for their studies, the range of these tools is mainly limited to one or two. The most popular tools are ChatGPT (40.9%) and Duolingo (61.3%), which demonstrate how AI is being used in higher education for data collecting, text generation, and language acquisition. Concerns about academic integrity and genuine scholarly work are also raised by the study, which indicates that 39.4% of students used artificial intelligence (AI) to write papers and theses. This issue raises the possibility of plagiarism. The largest percentage (48.0%) of use barriers are attributed to a lack of knowledge followed by ethical issues (41.6%) and privacy concerns (30.2%). The results indicate that although maintaining equal access for all students is crucial, higher education institutions also need to establish measures to support the ethical and successful use of AI technologies and integrate them into the curriculum.