2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper explores faculty perspectives regarding student use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) assistance tools, such as ChatGPT, to complete engineering coursework. A common debate in engineering and computer science exists about how faculty should address GAI tools (i.e., prevent their usage in order to maintain academic integrity, teach students the new technologies, or establish regulatory guidelines in higher education). While GAI continues to disrupt traditional educational paradigms, its full impacts on teaching and learning are currently unknown. Such work is especially useful for fields such as engineering and computer science, whose work lies at the forefront of technological advancement and whose students more readily adopt new technologies into course tasks.

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an intrinsic qualitative case study that answers the research question: How do engineering faculty perceive student use of GAI assistance in undergraduate course completion? Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with engineering and computer science faculty, including civil, mechanical, electrical, and biological engineering and computer science. As a result, this paper lays the groundwork for more extensive research in this domain and contributes to the broader discourse on the role of emerging technologies in shaping the future of engineering education.