AI Sensing and Intervention in Higher Education: Student Perceptions of Learning Impacts, Affective Responses, and Ethical Priorities

TL;DR

This study explores Australian university students' perceptions of AI sensing in learning, revealing preferences for targeted help over monitoring, and emphasizing the importance of privacy, autonomy, and ethical design in AI educational tools.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into student attitudes towards AI sensing and intervention, highlighting ethical priorities and preferences for non-intrusive, customizable educational AI systems.

Findings

Students prefer system-generated hints over teacher-initiated help.

Students respond negatively to AI monitoring regardless of sensing method.

Ethical priorities include autonomy, privacy, transparency, and fairness.

Abstract

AI technologies that sense student attention and emotions to enable more personalised teaching interventions are increasingly promoted, but raise pressing questions about student learning, well-being, and ethics. In particular, students' perspectives about AI sensing-intervention in learning are often overlooked. We conducted an online mixed-method experiment with Australian university students (N=132), presenting video scenarios varying by whether sensing was used (in-use vs. not-in-use), sensing modality (gaze-based attention detection vs. facial-based emotion detection), and intervention (by digital device vs. teacher). Participants also completed pairwise ranking tasks to prioritise six core ethical concerns. Findings revealed that students valued targeted intervention but responded negatively to AI monitoring, regardless of sensing methods. Students preferred system-generated hints over teacher-initiated assistance, citing learning agency and social embarrassment concerns. Students' ethical considerations prioritised autonomy and privacy, followed by transparency, accuracy, fairness, and learning beneficence. We advocate designing customisable, social-sensitive, non-intrusive systems that preserve student control, agency, and well-being.