How artificial intelligence transforms the feedback ecosystem in higher education

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often presented as solving longstanding challenges of feedback in higher education. Research and commentary tend to focus on how AI can replace educator labour by providing feedback information at scale but this substitution risks simplifying a complex and interconnected set of practices. We draw from Barnett’s work on the ecological university to offer a dynamic, relational view of an ecosystem – where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This perspective of the feedback ecosystem sensitised a qualitative study, where data was constituted through participant discussion within two-hour online workshops. Twelve students and 18 educators participated across three workshops; analysis of participant feedback experiences illustrated how feedback relations shift in the presence of AI. To conclude, we suggest that in response to AI, educators can seek to strengthen their feedback relationships with students over time – what we call humans-as-the-loop – in the feedback ecosystem.