Summary
Methodology for Qualitative Study on Student AI Usage
Highlights
Study Approach and Data Collection
The study utilizes a qualitative, phenomenological framework to explore how students explain and engage with AI in educational environments. Data is primarily gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which allow for granular exploration of student reasoning, motivations for AI use, and the level of agency students feel while completing AI-assisted academic tasks.
Participant Selection and Ethical Safeguards
Due to time constraints and the need to study minors, the research includes the author's own children and family members within middle and high school contexts. To uphold the integrity and credibility of the study, the research incorporates rigorous ethical standards including institutional review board approval, informed consent, voluntary participation, and strict anonymization protocols.
Addressing Researcher Bias
To mitigate the potential power imbalances and dual-role conflicts arising from researching one's own children, the study employs an independent researcher to oversee interviews and initial coding. Additionally, the parent-researcher maintains a reflexive audit trail designed to clearly distinguish between familial knowledge and empirical evidence generated through the qualitative data analysis.
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Original text
The study employs a qualitative, phenomenological approach to elucidate how students experience and explain AI use in class (Wang, 2024, p. 1832). Semi-structured, in-depth interviews constitute the principal data-collection method (Pierrès et al., 2024). This format permits follow-up questioning concerning why students use AI and how they reason through their work (Myhill et al., 2023, p. 1212944). These conversations may elucidate students’ subjective experiences of AI use and the degree of control they exercise during AI-assisted tasks (Pierrès et al., 2024). Because participants were minors and time was limited, we recruited the researcher’s own children and family members in middle- and high-school classes, with participation contingent upon institutional review board approval, informed consent from legal guardians, student assent, voluntary participation, strict anonymization, and safeguards addressing the potential power imbalance and dual-role concerns inherent in researching one’s own children (Cronqvist, 2024, p. 246; Matthiesen & Szulevicz, 2018). These safeguards may protect student participants and support the credibility of qualitative findings (Taquette & Souza, 2022). To address the dual-role problem, an independent researcher will conduct or review the interviews and initial coding, while the parent–researcher will maintain a reflexive audit trail separating familial knowledge from evidence generated through the study (Goodwin et al., 2021, p. 830).