Opening education through emerging technology: What are the prospects? Public perceptions of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality in the classroom

Authors

  • James E. Katz
  • Kate K. Mays
  • Yiming Skylar Lei

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3311/ope.415

Abstract

Education technology (Edtech) is a booming industry based on its potential to transform education and learning outcomes. With concern over remote learning, there is renewed excitement about the visual component of Edtech, namely VR, along with artificial intelligence (AI), resulting in more significant investments and innovations. Despite industrial-scale investment in Edtech's diffusion, less is known about the public's view. The public's reception of these technologies, though, maybe necessary in determining the contours of their eventual utilization. Therefore, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis based on a survey of a representative sample of the US population (N=2,254) that explores perceptions of Edtech in two instantiations: AI and VR in education. Respondents were more accepting of VR as a teaching tool than AI taking on educational roles. Assistive AI was born over AI with decision-making responsibilities. Personality and experiential traits had an influence on respondents' openness to education technologies. The results suggest support for a blended model of AI and VR use in the classroom.

Author Biographies

James E. Katz

 
 
Feld Family Professor of Emerging Media at Boston University’s College of Communication, where he directs the Center for Mobile Communication Studies and the Division of Emerging Media Studies. He also holds a distinguished professorship at Peking University’s School of New Media in Beijing. With Juliet Floyd, Katz is co-editor of Philosophy of Emerging Media:Understanding, Appreciation, Application (Oxford University Press), which includes contributions from Kristóf Nyíri and Zsuzsanna Kondor. His newest book on journalism and the search for truth, also under Oxford’s imprint, is scheduled for publication in 2019. Among Katz’s other books are Magic in the Air: Mobile Communication and the Transformation of Social Life; Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement, Expression (with Ronald E. Rice); and Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies. Author of more than 100 scientific articles and papers, his publications have been translated into seven languages. 

Kate K. Mays

 


Kate K. Mays recently completed her Ph.D. in Emerging Media Studies at Boston University’s College of Communication, where she was also a Graduate Student Fellow for computational and data-driven research at the Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. Her research explores the influence of emerging technologies on social life with a particular focus on robots and artificial intelligence.

Yiming Skylar Lei

 

Yiming “Skylar” Lei is a doctoral student in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Sociology at Sun Yat-sen University in China and her master’s degree in Emerging Media Studies at Boston University. She is interested in studying the psychological processing and effects of simulated media world created through interactive media technologies such as video games, virtual and augmented reality.

 

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Published

2021-03-10

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2021): 28. szám

Section

Studies