Publication

🏆 AI sensing and intervention in higher education: Student perceptions of learning impacts, affective responses, and ethical priorities

*Bingyi Han, Ying Ma, Simon Coghlan, Dana McKay, George Buchanan, Wally Smith (*work conducted prior to joining the group)

CHI2026 (Best Paper Award) · 2026

@inproceedings{han2026,
  title     = {🏆 AI sensing and intervention in higher education: Student perceptions of learning impacts, affective responses, and ethical priorities},
  author    = {*Bingyi Han and Ying Ma and Simon Coghlan and Dana McKay and George Buchanan and Wally Smith (*work conducted prior to joining the group)},
  booktitle = {CHI2026 (Best Paper Award)},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.1145/3772318.3790360},
}

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, wellbeing, 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.