Envisioning Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: The Lived Experiences, Usability and Perceptions in Selected Ghanaian Technical Universities

• In Event: The Future of Education in Afrika

Proposal

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fast-growing technology in all sectors and facets of society. In the education sector, AI tools such as Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), have provided new benefits, challenges and pressures for higher educational institutions (Bonsu & Baffour-Koduah 2023) and serve as a tool for knowledge building (Chen, Zhu & Castillo 2023). ChatGPT is considered a powerful AI chatbot with great potential to contribute to active learning, generating instant responses to academic and professional inquiries and promoting spontaneous interactions (Lai, Cheung & Chan 2023).
This study explored the lived experiences of using Al in Ghanaian technical education focusing on intergenerational understanding of AI tools, usability and perceptions. The roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and factors of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that influence Al tools usage are explored (Charness & Boot 2016). Adopting the mixed-methods sequential explanatory design: quantitative followed by qualitative (Creswell 2014), questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to elicit data among four generations: Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964), Generation X (Born 1965-1979), Generation Y (Born 1980-1994), and Generation Z (Born 1995-2009) within four randomly selected Ghanaian technical universities. SPSS was used to undertake a descriptive statistic of the questionnaire responses while Creswell and Poth’s (2018) Analysis Spiral was applied to the semi-structured interview data.
Cross-generational analyses reveal that all four generations are highly aware of AI tools with the majority of them using AI tools in enhancing their academic and professional activities with predominantly positive attitudes towards using AL tools. The study, therefore, advances ways technical universities and other stakeholders can develop and institute fitting policies that will better support teaching and learning in the recent and rapidly evolving landscape of education.

References:
(1) Bonsu, E. M., & Baffour-Koduah, D. (2023). From the consumers’ side: Determining students’ perception and intention to use ChatGPT in Ghanaian higher education. Journal of Education, Society & Multiculturalism, 4(1), 1-29.
(2) Chen, B., & Zhu, X. (2023). Integrating generative AI in knowledge building. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 5, 100184.
(3) Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design Choosing among Five Approaches, 4th ed, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks.
(4) Creswell, W. J. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th Ed.). London: Sage Publications.
(5) Charness, N., & Boot, W. R. (2016). Technology, gaming, and social networking. In Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (pp. 389-407). Academic Press.
(6) Lai, C. Y., Cheung, K. Y., & Chan, C. S. (2023). Exploring the role of intrinsic motivation in ChatGPT adoption to support active learning: An extension of the technology acceptance model. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 5, 100178.

Authors

• ELVIS RESCUE, University of Essex, UK

• Ramos Asafo-Adjei, Takoradi Technical University