Engineering students come to view mastering GenAI as crucial as other engineering skills, driven by labour-market expectations, alongside widespread uncertainty about over-reliance¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · qualitative r2–r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2031: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Students view mastering GenAI as crucial as acquiring other engineering skills, a shift driven by traditional tools' inadequacies and appreciation of changing labour-market requirements. → Tiina Leino Lindell 2026 q2 i? Students express widespread uncertainty and concern about changing competence expectations and potential over-reliance on AI. → Tiina Leino Lindell 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Tiina Leino Lindell 2026¶

Tiina Leino Lindell, Christian Stöhr. (2026). The AI disruption in engineering education: an analysis of changing student norms through cultural historical activity theory. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-025-09488-8

q2 · i? · qualitative · r2

Thematic finding from the interview study at the technical university. One student likened GenAI to "just another skill, like being good at programming or math", expecting to use it for almost everything at work to get the job done efficiently.

"These findings suggest that the participating students' access to GenAI might transform the goals of learning within the engineering education context studied. These engineering students now view mastering GenAI as crucial as acquiring other engineering skills."

Tiina Leino Lindell 2026 (2)¶

Tiina Leino Lindell, Christian Stöhr. (2026). The AI disruption in engineering education: an analysis of changing student norms through cultural historical activity theory. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-025-09488-8

q2 · i? · qualitative · r3

Second finding within the objectives-of-learning theme, reporting "widespread uncertainty and concern" about competence expectations and over-reliance. An architecture student asked "How dependent will I become on AI?" and worried about being expected to design six buildings instead of one in the same time.

"We also identify widespread uncertainty and concern regarding changing expecta- tions on competences and about a potential over-reliance on AI."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Excessive GenAI reliance risks undermining foundational ICT knowledge, supporting supervised in-person assessment of foundational content — related
• 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 — related
• Engineering students develop implicit rules for using GenAI as a self-directed, efficient learning tool when traditional educational tools fall short — related
• Teachers raise big-picture concerns about GenAI including surveillance, over-reliance, reduced teacher collaboration, job replacement, and training needs — related
• Fear that AI will replace jobs creates significant barriers to workforce engagement in AI literacy training — related
• GenAI's immediate answers reduce engineering students' teacher-student interactions for generalizable tasks, while teachers remain preferred for complex problem-solving — related
• The GenAI session strengthened immediate AI-handling confidence and workflow literacy, but students remained hesitant about transferring these skills to employment — related
• Students express fear and apathy about AI's impact on their careers, shifting focus toward outcomes over process and questioning effort investment in learning computer science — reports the opposite
• Reaching the qualitative SOLO phase in GenAI interaction required repeated meta-level learner interventions, demanding the very self-regulatory skills the tool was expected to support — related
• ChatGPT's biggest predicted disruption is its effect on knowledge work productivity, chiefly by providing a competent first draft — related
• Students express concerns about GenAI, with non-users (never/rarely) significantly more concerned than other users, and concerns uncorrelated with knowledge — related
• The skills required in a world powered by ChatGPT and related technologies will be different from those demanded previously — a broader claim this one bears on
• Employers value social and emotional development alongside content knowledge for workforce preparation — related