Integrating GenAI at the doctoral level

The use of Generative AI-driven methods has the potential to accelerate learning and research, yet it also raises critical questions about academic integrity, originality, and the fundamental role of human intellect in knowledge creation.

The most recent edition of Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice explores these developments by showcasing GenAI’s role in EdD programs. Six faculty with Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation contributed to the journal, which explores three thematic areas: 

• Student use of GenAI in dissertation writing and research
• Faculty perspectives on GenAI integration
• Institutional perspectives on GenAI's future impact on EdD programs 

James Dunnigan, an MLFC faculty member and part of the college’s Artificial Intelligence in Education Learning Futures Collaborative, served as the lead editor of the journal’s special edition and wrote the introduction: Introduction to the AI Special Edition Themed Issue: Role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Doctoral Research and Writing.

Dunnigan co-edited the piece and publication with Michael Kozak and Harriette Thurber Rasmussen, both assistant clinical professors with Drexel University, and Kristan Nicole Pearce, assistant professor with East Texas A&M University. MLFC faculty members and graduate research assistants contributed to two additional articles featured in the journal.

One was The Education Doctorate in the Context of Generative Artificial Intelligence: Epistemic Shifts and Challenges to Practical Wisdom by
Danah Henriksen, associate professor; Punya Mishra, professor,with graduate research assistants Lauren Woo and Nicole Oster.

This article explores how GenAI is reshaping knowledge creation, decision-making and scholarly practice in EdD programs, suggesting that AI literacy and critical thinking should be embedded in EdD curricula to help students engage responsibly with AI while maintaining the integrity of scholarly and practitioner knowledge.

The study focuses on the tension between GenAI-driven efficiency and the preservation of practical wisdom, or the ability to apply ethical and contextual judgment in educational leadership in the following areas:

• Epistemic shifts in knowledge creation: GenAI, like past technological advancements such as the printing press and the internet, changes how knowledge is produced, disseminated and validated. While GenAI can assist in research, writing and data analysis, it challenges traditional notions of expertise, authorship and critical inquiry.
• Challenges to practical wisdom: AI's ability to generate information at scale raises concerns about accuracy, bias and over-reliance on machine-generated insights. The authors argue that EdD programs must ensure that GenAI serves as a supporting tool rather than a substitute for human intuition, ethical reasoning and reflective practice.

The other article that MLFC faculty contributed to was Generative AI Use in an EdD Program. Informal, Independent Student Use and Formalized, Instructor-Directed Use by Ray Buss, professor; Amy Markos, clinical associate professor, and Josephine Marsh, associate professor.

This article examines how students in an EdD program utilize generative artificial intelligence tools in both self-directed and instructor-guided contexts. The study identifies two primary modes of GenAI engagement:

• Informal, independent use: Students autonomously employ GenAI applications such as Grammarly and Wordtune to enhance their writing quality. Additionally, some leverage GenAI to summarize research articles and locate pertinent literature, driven by a belief that proficiency with GenAI is essential for academic competitiveness.
• Formalized, instructor-directed use: When instructors integrate GenAI tools into the curriculum, particularly for tasks like identifying theoretical frameworks, students exhibit increased confidence in experimenting with GenAI. This structured introduction leads to a perception of GenAI as an indispensable resource in their doctoral studies.

Impacting Education is sponsored and published by the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. Research generated in the journal has strong implications for the management and policies of schools of education their EdD programs and the research, teaching and learning of their faculty and students.

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Learn more about MLFC faculty’s expertise in GenAI and learning
 

• MLFC has launched a foundational professional learning course: Generative AI: A New Learning Partner. Available at the ASU Professional Educator Learning Hub, the online course explores how educators can leverage AI as a creative partner. The course is developed by Mishra, Dunnigan and MLFC’s Janel White-Taylor, clinical professor. 
  
   
• MLFC faculty are actively exploring more than 50 projects through the university’s collaboration with OpenAI, an arrangement that ensures the university’s ability to retain its own data for proprietary uses (not used to train Open AI’s models).