Conducting Graduate Research: Artificial Intelligence

When appropriately used, generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be great resources for research and writing. Oklahoma State University's Edmon Low Library provides direction on appropriately using AI within academic research and writing, including potential issues, copyright, publisher policies, citing AI, and AI tools for research and writing.

Source: Oklahoma State University Edmon Low Library. (2025, March 21). AI in academic research and writing. https://info.library.okstate.edu/AI/home

Powerful generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools that can rapidly generate human-like responses to prompts and questions have created a challenge for some educators. Concerns abound about how easy it can be for students to use freely available and sophisticated chatbots to get quick answers for assignments and even churn out entire essays, undermining the learning process. 

Harvard University offers some essential general advice for students and educators for using generative AI. 

1) Think about the wider implications of using GenAI.

Be thoughtful and intentional about how you use new AI tools. Keep in mind their “limitations and potential harms.” Some of the concerns that are highlighted with using the technology are its “tendency to hallucinate, substantial environmental footprint, accessibility barriers due to cost, potential homogenization of culture, and inherent algorithmic biases.”

2) Protect learning and “authentic voice.”

Students are encouraged to think of “GenAI as a support, rather than a replacement, for personal thought, effort, and style.”

Haduong, Ph.D.'23, a visiting scholar affiliated with Brennan’s lab, said in an interview they appreciated how the students in the study used AI tools in their projects as part of their learning process, but not as a replacement for it, and how learners prioritized their own voice being present in their work. One student, for example, advised other students to, “really think of what you want at this moment. Do you just want to get the job done, or do you want to learn?”

GenAI helped learners with what Brennan described as “cognitive offload” in their learning design projects, which ranged from building apps and websites to in-person interactive experiences and curriculum design. This enabled students to focus on the parts of their projects that were the most interesting to them and allowed them to “do more, go further, go deeper,” she said.

3) Play and experiment.

Faculty and students interviewed recommended exploring and playing with different GenAI tools. “You’ve got to play around, get a sense of things. You can’t help students until you’ve got a feel for it yourself,” said one faculty member who was quoted in the guide.

Some students found conversational AI tools to be great thought and feedback partners while others used tools like ChatGPT to play “devil’s advocate” and provide opposite perspectives from their own which enabled them to test the strength of their ideas. 

4) Educators: explain your “why” and take a humble approach to learning about new technologies alongside your students.

Instead of blanket polices banning the use of GenAI in learning, Haduong encouraged educators to take a more nuanced approach by getting to grips with the tools themselves and carefully considering when they might be useful and when they might not be. Haduong added that some students, “found it really helpful when faculty explained why they were doing an assignment” because it helped them to “make decisions about what they might want to offload [to the AI tool] and what they wanted to do themselves.”

Learners also valued faculty who took a humble approach in class toward the new technologies, saying something along the lines of: “I'm learning alongside you and the tools are always changing. We don't know everything, but we're figuring it out together,” Haduong added. 

5) If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again, but only for so long.

Students reported having to make “multiple attempts and prompt refinements” when using GenAI tools. They also warned about the steep learning curve involved and acknowledged that sometimes drawing on their own skills and capabilities was more effective. One student who had a protracted experience using GenAI advised, “If you’re finding that you’re going for six hours, and maybe you should have been done by now, maybe you should stop.”

For more information about this research into faculty and graduate student usage of GenerativeAI click HERE. 

Source:

Ross, E.M. (2025, January 17). Tips for Using AI, From Grad Students and Professors. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/25/01/tips-using-ai-grad-students-and-professors#:~:text=Be%20thoughtful%20and%20intentional%20about,accessibility%20barriers%20due%20to%20cost%2C