Keywords
artificial intelligence
higher education
AI literacy
digital autonomy
educational practices
How to Cite
Abstract
The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI), particularly ChatGPT, highlights the need to consider both its educational potential and its risks. University educators and students today act simultaneously as active users and as critics of AI. This dual role generates public and academic debates about their usefulness, reliability, and ethical constraints. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of Ukrainian higher education students regarding ChatGPT and their practices of using it as an educational tool. The empirical basis comprises responses from 379 participants representing diverse educational levels and fields of study. The data were collected as part of an international survey. The analysis applied descriptive statistics, clustering, t-tests, analysis of variance, and correlation analysis. The originality of this research lies in being the first empirical attempt, in the Ukrainian context, to identify three types of ChatGPT users through cluster analysis: highly active, moderately active, and low-active (skeptical). This typology demonstrates the diversity of students’ digital autonomy and their readiness to integrate AI into learning. An important scientific finding is the absence of statistically significant differences in attitudes toward ChatGPT by gender or educational level. This indicates the universality of its perception among Ukrainian students. At the same time, positive correlations were found between frequency and experience of use and the overall evaluation of ChatGPT’s functionality. The results show that students mostly use ChatGPT for educational purposes. However, their use is irregular and accompanied by only moderate levels of trust. The highest ratings were given to cognitively oriented functions such as simplifying complex information, summarizing large volumes of data, and presenting material effectively. By contrast, trust remains low regarding ChatGPT’s ability to ensure the accuracy of results. The paper provides recommendations for the differentiated implementation of ChatGPT in the educational process, considering students' varying levels of digital maturity. It also emphasizes the need to develop AI literacy to support academic integrity and to foster key competencies for the 21st century.
References
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REFERENCES (TRANSLATED AND TRANSLITERATED)
[1] Ch. Stöhr, Ou. A. Wanyu, and H. Malmström, “Perceptions and usage of AI chatbots among students in higher education across genders, academic levels and fields of study,” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, vol. 7, pp. 100259, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2024.100259. (in English)
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[3] F. Heard, “ChatGPT as Academic Support Tool: Students’ Perceptions & Practices,” International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, vol. 9, no. 03, pp. 2756-2770, 2025. https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.903SEDU0209. (in English)
[4] S. Onal, D. Kulavuz-Onal, and M. Childers, “Patterns of ChatGPT Usage and Perceived Benefits on Academic Performance Across Disciplines: Insights from a Survey of Higher Education Students in the United States,” Journal of Educational Technology Systems, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 34–66, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472395251341214. (in English)
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[6] X. Xu, Y. Su, Y. Zhang, Y. Wu, and X. Xu, “Understanding learners’ perceptions of ChatGPT: A thematic analysis of peer interviews among undergraduates and postgraduates in China,” Heliyon, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. e26239, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26239. (in English)
[7] S. R. Das and J. V. Madhusudan, “Perceptions of higher education students towards ChatGPT usage,” International Journal of Technology in Education (IJTE), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 86-106, 2024. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijte.583. (in English)
[8] G. Zhu et al., “Embrace Opportunities and Face Challenges: Using ChatGPT in Undergraduate Students' Collaborative Interdisciplinary Learning,” аrXiv, 2023. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2305.18616. (in English)
[9] D. Long and B. Magerko, “What Is AI Literacy? Competencies and Design Considerations,” in Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376727. (in English)
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[12] B. Chen, X. Zhu, F. Díaz, and H. del Castillo, “Integrating generative AI in knowledge building,” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, vol. 5, pp. 100184, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2023.100184. (in English)
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[24] M. C. Laupichler, A. Aster, N. Haverkamp, and T. Raupach, “Development of the “Scale for the assessment of non-experts’ AI literacy” – An exploratory factor analysis,” Computers in Human Behavior Reports, vol. 12, pp. 100338, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100338. (in English)
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[26] A. Aristovnik et al., “Higher Education Students’ Evolving Perceptions of ChatGPT: Global Survey Data from the Academic Year 2024-2025,” Mendeley Data, V1, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17632/nv2343nwsb.1. (in English)
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[29] European Educational Research Association (EERA). (2011). Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. [Online]. Available: https://surl.li/oukfum. (in English)
[30] I. A. Abdulmumin and M. R. Abdulrahman, “Undergraduate Perception, Attitude, and Utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ChatGPT for Learning: An Educational Technology Perspective,” Indonesian Journal of Multidiciplinary Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijomr.v5i1.82062. (in English)
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