Education: ComAI for learning and teaching (ComAI P9)

• 2025 – 2028
• Prof. Dr. Andreas Breiter

Subproject of the DFG/FWF Research Unit "Communicative AI" (ComAI)

In education, particularly in higher education, technologies have a long history of improving learning and teaching. Most recently GPT-4 and other LLMs are seen both in media discourses and in politics as a “game changer”, confronting higher education with societal expectations and fears.

In the light of this, the project will address how learning and teaching as well as supporting administrative processes are challenged by the appropriation of ComAI in higher education.

We will investigate how higher education institutions cope with these technological changes and its (side-)consequences of embedded biases and related social inequalities.

This will be investigated with qualitative interviews in case studies at five German universities, accompanied by student surveys, analyses of data journeys and administrative process models. To understand the dynamics of ComAI’s appropriation and the challenges that emerge through its introduction in higher education administrations—including related patterns of coping and imaginaries of future developments—we will contextualize our research at these five universities with investigations of US universities where ComAI is already being used on a larger scale.

Publications:

• Breiter, A. (2017). Datafication in education. In T. Brinda, N. Mavengere, I. Haukijärvi, C. Lewin & D. Passey (eds.), Stakeholders and Information Technology in Education (pp. 95-103). Berlin: Springer.
• Breiter, A., & Bock, A. (2023). Datafizierte Gesellschaft | Bildung | Schule. In A. Bock, A. Breiter, S. Hartong, S. Jornitz, A. Lange & F. Macgilchrist (eds.), Die datafizierte Schule (pp. 1-36). Berlin: Springer VS. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-38651-1
• Hartmann, J., Heuer, H., & Breiter, A. (2022). Data Leakage Through Click Data in Virtual Learning Environments. 20. Fachtagung Bildungstechnologien (DELFI), 135-146. doi: 10.18420/delfi2022-025
• Hartong, S., & Breiter, A. (2021). Between fairness optimization and ‘inequalities of dataveillance’. In S. Grek, C. Maroy & A. Verger (eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2021. Accountability and Datafication in the Governance of Education (pp. 54-71). London: Routledge.
• Heuer, H., Jarke, J., & Breiter, A. (2021). Machine Learning in Tutorials Big Data & Society. doi: 10.1177/20539517211017593
• Jarke, J., & Breiter, A. (2019). Editorial: the datafication of education. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(1), 1-6. doi: 10.1080/17439884.2019.1573833
• Krieter, P., Viertel, M., & Breiter, A. (2020). We Know What You Did Last Semester. 15th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2020). doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-57717-9_14
• von der Heyde, M., Breiter, A., & Hofmann, J. (2018). Factorial analyses in IT governance reveal constellations of decision shares and their consequences on IT in higher education institutions. EUNIS 2018, 6.-8.6.2018, Paris.
• Welling, S., Breiter, A., & Schulz, A. H. (2015). Mediatisierte Organisationswelten in Schulen. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
• Wiesner, A., Breiter, A., & Brandes, I. (2021). Agile Strategy Development – Handling different speeds in digital transformation with participatory methods. EUNIS 2021, Online Conference.