Ethical and pedagogical implications of AI in language education: An empirical study at Ha'il University

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the role of AI as an educational tool from an ethical and pedagogical perspective as it delves into the perceptions of the teaching community whose resistance to technology integration into conventionally managed classrooms has been well established in a large number of studies. The study uses a mixed methods design to gather data from 50 English, Translation, and Linguistics faculty members at Ha'il University whose collective and individual views on the ethical and pedagogical issues are analyzed using a questionnaire and individual interviews. Results indicate an overall high perception (M = 3.49, Std = 0.808) among the teachers towards the ethical use of AI in their teaching experience and (M = 3.84, Std = 0.833), on the pedagogical implications of AI in the learning process. Findings also indicate that educators are aware of solutions to ensure maintenance of ethics with inclusion of AI in teaching, including training students on the use of AI, regulating the learning environment, using AI-based plagiarism detector and reformulating the assessment systems. They also report pedagogical considerations that help in the integration of AI tools in the EFL classroom. The study concludes with recommending that both EFL instructors and students be aware about the ways and need to ensure safer use of AI in the learning process.

Keywords

• AI
• Ethical use
• Education
• Pedagogy
• Research work
• Teacher awareness