Bridging Public Perception and Institutional Policy: A Comprehensive Analysis of Artificial Intelligence's Impact on Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Rapid Waves: Instituitons Responses to Shifting Political and Tecnological Enviornments

Abstract

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into higher education holds promise for advancing teaching, research, and administration. However, the ways in which these developments are perceived by the public and formalized in institutional policies remain underexplored. We bridge this gap by examining the themes emerging in both public opinion and institutional AI policies. By comparing public discourse across various media outlets with the official AI policies published by colleges and universities, we will offer insights into how different stakeholders perceive and implement AI. This proposal shares our findings of a nationally representative sample of colleges’ and universities’ policy and guidelines, while testing for differences across sectors, regions, and research intensity. Relying on machine learning-based text classification, we identified eight themes.

Authors

• Chelsea Zhang, University of Pennsylvania

• Manuel S. Gonzalez Canche, University of Pennsylvania