While the first article in this series, How UBC Faculty Are Using Generative AI, focused on how faculty communicate expectations regarding student use of GenAI and how they are (or aren’t) using GenAI themselves, this article explores faculty perceptions of their own proficiency with GenAI, the perceived proficiency of their students, and the role of the university in supporting GenAI application to teaching and learning. In addition, faculty were asked if they viewed GenAI’s impact on higher education as more of an opportunity or more of a challenge. The majority of faculty (53%) indicated they saw it as both, with many faculty (40%) reporting it as more of a challenge. Only 7% of faculty reported seeing the impact as an opportunity.
Student and Faculty Proficiency
Faculty were asked to share their perceptions of their GenAI knowledge and skills along with their perceptions of students’ knowledge and skills and students’ ability to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs. Faculty rated their own knowledge and skills higher than those of their students (60% agreeing they had sufficient knowledge and skills, but only 14% agreeing students did), which follows the opposite pattern we saw in the student data (61% of students felt they had sufficient knowledge and skills while only 40% thought faculty did). Further, faculty were substantively less likely than students to agree with the idea that students are able to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs. Just 25% of faculty agreed with this statement while 80% of students agreed that they were able to do this. This may suggest faculty feel they are more proficient users of GenAI than students and that students may be overestimating their abilities in this area. However, it could also suggest faculty are underestimating their students’ abilities.
Institutional Support
When evaluating the university’s role, faculty expressed dissatisfaction with the current levels of training and support for both themselves and students. Only 19% of respondents feel that UBC provides sufficient training on the effective use of GenAI. Interestingly, faculty were even less likely to agree that UBC provided sufficient training/support for students, with only 4% of faculty agreeing with this statement. As similar results were found in the student survey, this highlights a demand for more structured institutional resources to help both faculty and students effectively use these tools to support teaching and learning.
There is also a perceived need for more engagement with the ethical dimensions of GenAI. While 26% of faculty feel that sufficient space is provided for conversations around ethical considerations, a larger portion (41%) disagree. These numbers closely mirrored students’ responses with 35% of students agreeing and 41% of students disagreeing with this statement. These results suggest that both students and faculty are keen to see more opportunities to learn about and discuss the vast ethical implications of GenAI.
GenAI in Learning
Faculty expressed a widespread concern about GenAI’s impact on students’ cognitive abilities. A massive 88% of faculty agreed that students’ reliance on GenAI may be hindering their learning and 90% felt that students’ use of GenAI may be degrading their critical thinking skills. Regardless of whether they felt GenAI was an opportunity, challenge or both, faculty overwhelmingly expressed concern for its impact on student learning and development.
Career Implications
Much like the student responses, faculty were divided on the importance of incorporating GenAI in UBC courses to prepare students for their future careers. While approximately half of all faculty (58%) agreed this was important, about a quarter (28%) felt it was not. This is notably more supportive than students, where only 36% agreed this was important for their future careers. However, faculty agreement on this question varied significantly by discipline with Medicine & Health and Sciences & Engineering (STEM) reporting the highest levels fo agreement (85% and 80% respectively) and Education, Humanities & Social Sciences and Land, Food & Forestry Sciences reporting the lowest levels (26% and 34% respectively).
Faculty also generally agreed that GenAI was forcing changes to their roles. The majority of faculty (68%) reported having made changes to their course assessments to make them more resistant to GenAI use. Further, 74% agreed that GenAI is causing significant changes to the role of instructors. This idea was further supported in the open-ended feedback which is the focus of the next article in this series.
Conclusion
Overall, while faculty recognize the growing relevance of generative AI for students’ career preparation, they are deeply concerned about its potential impact on critical thinking, academic integrity, and pedagogical roles. Expanding structured training, facilitating open ethical dialogues, and guiding assessment redesign are all important next steps for academic leaders to consider.
The next article in this series, Faculty Recommendations for UBC, explores faculty responses to two open-ended questions:
- How can UBC best support your needs related to GenAI?
- Are there any other thoughts you’d like to share with us about GenAI?