GenAI has wreaked disruption not only with university teaching teams and administrators, but also the students. Here’s what they’re telling us…
The Student Voices on AI in HE project is run by a consortium of UTS, UQ, Deakin and Monash, sponsored by their respective DVCs for Education. The mission to give university students a voice in how they are making sense of the generative AI revolution. CIC’s Simon Buckingham Shum and Lisa Lim have been working with other UTS colleagues (Jan McLean, Nicole Pepperell, Antonette Shibani) resulting in a survey with >8000 students, and focus groups with 79 students.
As we crunch the huge amounts of quantitative and qualitative data gathered, the project’s results are being shared via Executive Briefings presented at the HEDx conference [2024 • 2025 • 2026], short pieces in Future Campus newsletter, and detailed research papers bringing out key themes (a sample below).
Chung, J., Henderson, M., Slade, C., Liang, Y., Pepperell, N., Corbin, T., Walton, J., Yu, A.S., Bearman, M., Buckingham Shum, S., Fawns, T., McCluskey, T., McLean, J., Oberg, G.,Seligmann, Shibani, A., Bakharia, A., Lim, L.A., & Matthews, K. E. (2026). The use and usefulness of GenAI in higher education: Student experience and perspectives. Computers and Education Open, 100347.
Henderson, M., Bearman, M., Chung, J., Fawns, T., Buckingham Shum, S., Matthews, K. E., & de Mello Heredia, J. (2025). Comparing Generative AI and teacher feedback: student perceptions of usefulness and trustworthiness. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1–16.
Bearman, M., Fawns, T., Corbin, T., Henderson, M., Liang, Y., Oberg, G., Walton, J., & Matthews, K. E. (2025). Time, emotions and moral judgements: how university students position GenAI within their study. Higher Education Research & Development, 1–15.
Oberg, G., Liang, Y., Bearman, M., Fawns, T., Henderson, M., & Matthews, K.E. (2026). Feeling AI: Circulating emotions, institutional climates, and moral boundaries in student use of AI. Higher Education, 1-19.