Perception of the Use of AI Chat Playground in Higher Education and its Impact on the Development of Transversal Competence in Digital Transformation

Abstract

Since the release of ChatGPT, the excitement and skepticism about the use and academic integrity of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms applied for educational purposes have increased notoriously. Particularly, teachers are nowadays interested in integrating AI tools in the learning process and improving the students disciplinary and transversal competencies. The objective of this paper is to measure the ease of use, experience and use for learning of MATLAB AI Chat Playground as a tool in learning activities for undergraduate engineering students. We present a qualitative study and descriptive statistics to analyze the data obtained from a survey applied to the students. The survey is divided into two sections: perception of using the tool and self-evaluation of the transversal competence in digital transformation developed through the course. Also, a comparison between students’ self-perception and teachers’ final evaluations of the digital transformation competence is presented. The experiment implementation was performed during the early second academic term of first-year engineering students. An instrument was applied to 25 students. The results show acceptance of the tool. Moreover, students perceive AI Chat Playground as useful and powerful. However, there are some concerns and uncertainty about inappropriate use, dependance and abuse on using the tool.