Ethical acceptability of GenAI use varied with disciplinary norms: assistance was more acceptable for supporting or procedural tasks than for core intellectual tasks¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitative r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Participants' ethical reasoning was shaped by how a task was positioned within disciplinary practice: GenAI assistance was more acceptable for supporting or procedural tasks and more problematic when it displaced activities central to scholarly formation. → Wei Dai and Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan 2026

Evidence¶

Wei Dai and Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan 2026¶

Wei Dai and Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan. (2026). Shaping responsible GenAI use in research through AI literacy-oriented guidelines: insights from postgraduate students. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-026-00609-6

q2 · i? · qualitative · r3

RQ2 theme on protecting learning and critical thinking: the analysis reports that what counted as a core intellectual task varied with disciplinary norms; one participant treated AI-assisted writing as unacceptable while another accepted AI-assisted coding as a supporting skill in their discipline.

"GenAI assistance was more acceptable when applied to supporting or procedural tasks, but more problematic when it displaced activities understood as central to scholarly formation or intellectual contribution."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• AI-assisted ideation was conditionally acceptable when researchers retained decision-making authority, but problematic when it displaced conceptual labour — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• PGR students rejected GenAI generation of research ideas, original arguments, or whole papers as violating authorship norms, while accepting surface-level support — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• In interviews with 25 engineering students at one Swedish university, students described GenAI as acceptable when it stimulates reflection and directly copying its outputs as cheating, and one used its fallibility as a prompt to double-check — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Student perceptions of AI use in academic work are neutral and range from viewing AI as valid learning assistance to viewing it as cheating, depending on task type, transparency, and assessment design — a broader claim this one bears on
• Nearly all postgraduate research students in the study used GenAI across multiple research stages, positioning it as a supportive assistant with human oversight retained — related
• Students raised ethical concerns about GenAI-assisted data comic creation, most frequently misinformation, bias, ownership, and reduced trustworthiness — related
• Students express profound confusion about whether GenAI-assisted coursework is original work and whether they can claim authorship — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Evaluators view GenAI use in story writing as broadly acceptable but reject unacknowledged use and demand compensation for source creators — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Students and educators disagree on the acceptability of unacknowledged generative AI use across academic writing subtasks — a narrower finding that bears on this claim