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Faculty of Arts and Design

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Start date: 2022Subject: search.filters.subject.Lecturers

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    Exploring the adoption of ChatGPT in higher education : a case of lecturers in a University of Technology in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
    (IATED, 2024-07) Mlambo, Philani Brian
    ChatGPT has been regarded by many scholars as the innovation of the century since its inception in November 2022. This is mainly because of the things that are out of this world that ChatGPT is capable of doing and that has led to many heated arguments about using ChatGPT in higher education settings. As a result, this qualitative study sought to explore the adoption of ChatGPT in higher education by getting the views of eight (8) lecturers through semi-structured interviews. The data from the semi structured interviews was analyzed using a thematic analysis to gauge the lecturer's view about the adoption of ChatGPT in higher education. This study adopted a convenience sampling technique to select the eight (8) lecturers that formed part of this study. This study responded to the objectives of this study through the aid of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory which underpinned this study. The findings from the semi-structured interviews indicated that ChatGPT is a tool that will promote laziness in students and take away the ability to think critically. Findings further revealed that most lectures have engaged with ChatGPT, and they were mesmerized by the ability ChatGPT has. Based on the findings, this study recommends that students should be taught how to use ChatGPT as a supporting tool for teaching and learning rather than taking ChatGPT as a tool to do everything for them which will impact the kind of graduates, they will be upon graduating in higher education.
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    Investigating ChatGPT : a threat or benefit to higher education?
    (Futurity Research Publishing, 2024-03-13) Mlambo, Philani Brian
    Over the past years, technology has been on the rise and this rise has necessitated the need for technology developers to be on their toes in ensuring that new technologies are developed to keep up with the fast-paced technology rise. Consequently, the rise in artificial intelligence brought ChatGPT which has been seen as the most advanced chatbot that has ever been created. However, scholars have mixed views about ChatGPT in the context of higher education which has compelled the need to investigate ChatGPT to gauge whether it is a threat or a benefit to higher education. This study aimed to investigate lecturers' views about ChatGPT, ascertain whether ChatGPT is a threat or benefit to higher education, and get lecturers' views if whether or not ChatGPT can be used as an official academic tool to support both lecturers and students in doing their academic work. To carry out the objectives of this study, a qualitative research approach was employed, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Data collected was analysed using a thematic analysis. Furthermore, convenience sampling was used to select eight (8) lecturers to gather their in-depth understanding of ChatGPT. Findings of this study indicate that lecturers view ChatGPT as a source of information. Findings further revealed that there are mixed views among lecturers on whether ChatGPT is a threat or benefit to higher education. This study recommends that there should be guidelines and policies to guide the usage of ChatGPT so that students and lecturers will not misuse it.
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    A poetic inquiry into lecturers' encounters with technological teaching tools
    (2022-02) Peté, Margaretha Maria; Wade, Jean-Philippe; Cronjé, Johannes
    In this study I asked how poetic inquiry (PI) can contribute to capturing the full complexity of lecturers’ encounters with technological teaching tools; and how Actor Network Theory (ANT) and its theoretical relations can help to comprehend how agency plays out during these encounters. I used the performative or reflexive interview technique to interview 12 lecturers from the Durban University of Technology about their encounters with technology. This method created conditions where something poetic could be expressed – truth was performed together by interviewee and interviewer. To understand lecturers’ agency, I analysed virtual interview recordings by creating poetic representations (participant-voiced poems). I prompted conversations by sending interviewees a collection of my autobiographical poems some weeks before the interviews – these poems capture encounters I experienced first-hand as insider-researcher. In preparation for the interviews, I also wrote a series of theory-voiced poems from engaging with the literature. I found that thinking with ANT while writing poetry by way of analysis, enabled me to trace networks of human and non-human actors, to gain a clearer understanding of a world where we perform agency within networks of things. Because I worked like this and deliberately avoided an overall thematic analysis of the body of poetry (which tends to seek common themes), I was able to disrupt patterns and thus the poems foregrounded and articulated divergence, difference, dis-closure – the local textures of actor networks. This study has found that the power of the particular is concentrated by combining the instruments of PI and ANT – this dual strategy has helped the poet-researcher to identify, animate, follow actors and stage encounters. ANT and its theoretical relations worked together with the devices of PI, to illuminate the great variety of ways in which technological things have authorised or blocked the agency of lecturers at the DUT. The strategy of coupling PI with ANT culminated in the development of the ANT-PI question kit, which enabled the discussion of selected poems in relation to theory and methodology. In the kit, each research question is accompanied by a set of theory-focused questions. I prepared the reader for creative engagement from the first chapter, ending with the invitation to use the kit to unlock the poetry collection which concludes the thesis. Having pointed out specific contributions above, overall through affect and form, the study makes a contribution to social science, technology and education, yielding a collection of 46 poems. My scholarly regard for subconscious knowing and the imagination deepened as I trusted these devices continually throughout this inquiry to illuminate truth. I was surprised by the poems and what they revealed. The thesis is a demonstration of the kind of knowing that emerges through fidelity to the belief that imagination is equal to reason.