Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a very powerful tool that is applied in many different fields nowadays: science, technology, health, humanities, arts, among others. Since the last academic year, the use of AI has also quickly grown in Higher Education.

The present work aims to explore the extent and impact of AI in Higher Education in terms of the main uses of AI, frequency of use, applications, impact on students’ competences and performance, etc. Another goal of the study was to identify differences in the use of AI depending on the degree being studied.

This research involved 80 students of 1st and 2nd year of different University degrees: Physics, Data Science, Engineering, Business Administration and Marketing. Results showed that most students use AI regularly with academic purposes: more than 80% in degrees related to Science and Engineering; more than 90% in degrees related to Business Administration and Marketing. Moreover, 60% of the students reported a positive impact of AI in their performance, confirming that AI is useful in improving several of their skills: it enhances the learning process, it is useful for learning from mistakes, in understanding difficult concepts and it improves research skills. On the other hand, more than 50% of the students stated that AI adversely affects a variety of competences such as: effort capacity, synthesis ability, mathematical reasoning, perseverance, critical thinking, or written communication. Finally, 10% of the students reported that they would not be able to study a University degree without the help of AI, while 20% claimed otherwise. Nevertheless, more than 50% argued that they could study a University degree without the help of AI, but it would take them longer and with lower grades.

In conclusion, this research was useful to prove the generalized use of AI in Higher Education, as well as to evaluate its impact on several transversal competences.

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence, University degree, student performance, competences.