The imperative for UG Research Based Learning in the Age of Generative AI
ACUR 3rd Colloquium held 22 October 2024
Organised in collaboration with the ‘UWA Community of Practice on Embedding Research into Curriculum’ the 3rd ACUR Colloquium had over 70 attendees from across the Australasia and Internationally demonstrating strong interest in this topic focus.
Watch the presentations on video [member-only resource] – COMING SOON
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Summary of Themes
Importance of developing students’ research-thinking mindsets
Emeritus Professor Angela Brew stressed the even greater value that we should be placing on the development of our students ‘researcherly mindsets’, their capacity to critically engage with information, knowing they will be using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their work, life and study.
It is through engagement with research and scholarship that we have developed a more nuanced understanding of different levels of knowledge, of different theoretical approaches, and of the nature of evidence. As Prof. Brew set out, as our students use AI to generate and develop knowledge it is even more important that we facilitate the asking of critical questions around how we determine what is true, what the knowledge before us is, and where it comes from. Prof Brew offered the analogy of the backpack to convey the core reason for a research-based learning and the types of learning outcomes we should be seeking to facilitate.
Figure 1:Aspects of a researcherly mindset we should ensure are in students learning backpacks.
[Image] by A. Brew, 2024. Copyright: CC BY-NC-SA
Integrating research-based learning into curriculum
In terms of how we achieve these learning aims, Prof Brew, reiterated the need to develop a through-line of inquiry and research experiences at all levels of students’ learning, to ensure a backpack filled with a robust set of transferable researcherly skills, identifying Dilly Fung’s Connected Curriculum Model as an exemplar of this ideal. The research undertaken by Brew and Mantai (2017) also promoted the value of ‘wholistic’ rather than ‘atomistic’ approaches to integrating UG Research.
This theme was further developed by Professor Pauline Ross, who is leading curriculum innovation at the University of Sydney. Prof. Ross used AI generated prompts to highlight the potential detrimental impact of its use on the development students’ own critical thinking and deep learning. Using a student undergraduate research project which led to a successful publication in a well-regarded journal as an example, Prof. Ross demonstrated how an AI generated version of the research they undertook had all the hallmarks of a research project, with findings that would look convincing to those outside the discipline but were clearly wrong. This highlights the importance of facilitating our students’ awareness of false AI outputs.
Prof Ross reiterated the importance of focussing on the development of these higher order meta-cognitive research skills, highlighting the research into the development of TREASURE – Teaching Research Evaluation Strategies as one possible approach that could be revisited. Given the growing recognition that generative AI requires a shift away from a focus on learning outputs to a focus on the critical thinking processes, this and other research into inquiry and research-based learning (RBL) approaches provide a rich legacy of ideas to build actions now required at scale. AI presents an opportunity to enable research-led pedagogy uptake which might have been a choice up to now but is imperative today.
Committing to RBL for all students
Sara Wardak, as our panel student representative and current Head of the ACUR Student Committee, shared the value of research experiences to her learning journey and future career prospects. As Sara noted, some of these UG Research experiences were only available to students with the highest ATAR scores, or as extra-curricular opportunities such as research internships, made possible through prior engagement in research. A benefit of being a part of an organisation such as ACUR, and in participating in the annual ACUR Conference for Sara, is the opportunity to meet a community of UG researchers and see the breadth of innovative and creative research projects that are possible for UG students. Wouldn’t all students benefit from directing their own learning by pursuing inquiry and research questions they are interested, or dare we say, passionate about? How do we follow through on our commitment to provide this type of self-directed motivation to learn for all students?
The good, bad, and ugly potential of generative AI
As highlighted by our panel speakers, generative AI can be seen as a powerful assistive tool, especially when used and developed within an informed research context with specific information and data enhancement aims. However, it also presents a host of moral and ethical dilemmas – as indicated by Noam Chomsky’s renaming it a large-scale ‘plagiarism machine’; together with the non-transparent biases inherent within the algorithms applied and content selected, and due to the very real threats to deep learning and building of future cultural capital.
The generative AI in the public sphere, has very different capacities to those built for applied research, and to those used within industry. Each has issues, such as the implications of powering this technology in a Net Zero Carbon world. The imperative for RBL in the age of generative AI very much needs to be able to prepare students to operate and contribute to a society grappling with the many nuanced views and applications, as well as prepare students to advocate for informed AI integration within broader social issues.
Prepared by: Lucia Ravi, on behalf of the UWA CoP on Embedding Research into Curriculum and ACUR
View the recorded presentations, PowerPoints and transcript [member-only resource]. – COMING SOON
If you are not yet a member, first check whether your institution is a member. Our institutional members can be found on our home page. If it is, email admin@acur.org.au, for access. If you are not part of a member institution, join as an individual here.
