Lead us not into temptation: notes from the StudentXGenAI Project. With Stephen Gow

Last year HEPI reported 95% of students were using gen AI, but recent research from Stephen Gow and Sam Illingworth casts doubt on this figure. Today I’m joined by Stephen to talk through some of the key finding of his Leverhume Trust funded study that draws data from over 7,000 participants. What do students really think about gen AI in higher education, and how should this shape the way we treat it in the curriculum? Guest Bio Dr Stephen Gow was the Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Department of Learning and Teaching Enhancement (DLTE) at Edinburgh Napier University. During this role he led the Student Experiences on Generative AI Project (StudentXGenAI), this project carried out the StudentXGenAI Survey with a response rate of over 7000 students at UK institutions and interviews with students across the UK in addition to integrating GenAI into the research process. He is an expert on academic integrity, assessment and GenAI, and the Chair of the Northern Academic Integrity Forum. He is now associate staff with Department of Education, University of York and available for consultation and research projects related to GenAI in education. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via Linkedin: Stephen Gow | LinkedIn  Further reading Chung, J., Henderson, M., Slade, C., Liang, Y., Pepperell, N., Corbin, T., Walton, J., Yu, AS., Bearman, M., Buckingham Shum, S., Fawns, T., McCluskey, T., McLean, J., Oberg, G., Seligmann, A., Shibani, A., Bakharia, A., Lim, LA., Matthews, KE. (2026). The use and usefulness of GenAI in higher education: Student experience and perspectives. Computers and Education Open, Available at: doi:  10.1016/j.caeo.2026.100347. Gow S, Illingworth S (2026), "Dynamic tensions: an AI-assisted critical scoping review of university students' qualitative experiences of GenAI". Artificial Intelligence in Education, Vol. 2 No. 1 pp. 67–89, Available at: doi: 10.1108/AIIE-06-2025-0151  Gow, S. and Illingworth, S. (2026) “It is a temptation to get it to do the work…” – student experiences of GenAI in UK universities. 09 Apr 2026. Advance HE. [Online]. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/it-temptation-get-it-do-work-student-experiences-genai-uk-universities [Accessed 20 April 2026]. The Castlereagh Statement is available at: https://castlereagh.ai/ Timecodes 00:00 Welcome and guest intro 01:12 Duolingo streak talk 06:20 Tech backlash and attention 10:46 Generative AI literacy risks 19:23 Introducing StudentXGenAI 22:31 Survey design and access 24:54 Who uses GenAI and why 27:23 Productivity versus learning 31:42 Massification and student pressures 34:26 Research goals and policy impact 34:48 Survey design choices 35:52 UK vs Australia findings 36:47 Why usage rates differ 38:15 Regulation and risk 39:07 Learning tool doubts 41:11 Assessment scales explained 45:42 Trust and honesty data 49:44 Fairness and incentives 56:55 Exams after COVID 01:03:59 Data privacy and costs 01:07:31 Future research