“LIVING WITH AI”: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF STUDENT ETHICAL EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

This qualitative study explores students' ethical perspectives and decision-making processes regarding artificial intelligence integration in academic contexts through semi-structured interviews with 20 undergraduate and graduate students across multiple disciplines. The research reveals that students encounter complex ethical dilemmas involving transparency, dependency concerns, and equity issues while developing sophisticated multi-principled frameworks that balance utilitarian and deontological considerations to distinguish between AI use that enhances versus replaces learning. Key findings indicate that disciplinary norms, inconsistent institutional policies, peer community negotiations, and personal values significantly influence students' perceptions of appropriate AI use, with participants employing strategies such as boundary-setting, proactive transparency, and outcome-focused evaluation to navigate tensions between leveraging AI capabilities and maintaining academic integrity. The study demonstrates that students are capable of nuanced ethical reasoning about AI use and are actively constructing community-based norms in the absence of clear institutional guidance, suggesting that effective AI governance in higher education requires collaborative approaches that support peer-driven ethics development, address equity concerns related to AI access, and evolve traditional academic integrity frameworks to focus on authentic learning outcomes rather than process restrictions. These findings contribute to understanding how students construct ethical frameworks for emerging technologies and provide crucial insights for developing comprehensive, context-sensitive AI ethics policies that balance innovation with educational integrity in higher education settings.