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Navigating the challenges of Gen-AI in Chinese higher education: Balancing technological innovation with academic integrity and intellectual engagement
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DOI：10.1016/j.caeo.2026.100397.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
The rapid integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI) into Chinese higher education (HE) is reshaping academic practices, raising concerns about critical thinking, academic integrity, and the essence of intellectual work. While Gen-AI offers significant benefits by streamlining academic tasks and enhancing operational efficiency, its influence on critical engagement and intellectual agency remains contested. This study explores how university staff and students in China perceive and navigate Gen-AI’s impact on teaching, learning, and thinking practices. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus and Arendt’s conceptualisation of thinking as an inward, untransferable activity, the research employed a qualitative design, conducting semi-structured interviews with 33 participants from Jiangxi Province, China. Thematic analysis identified two principal tensions: the erosion of independent, critical and creative thinking, and the destabilisation of established understandings of academic integrity. Although Gen-AI tools facilitate time-saving practices and can offer emotional support, they risk fostering cognitive passivity and undermining intellectual processes fundamental to HE. The findings suggest a pressing need for critical curricular reform and the reimagining of educational practices that prioritise intellectual development. In an increasingly AI-mediated academic environment, safeguarding the humanistic aspect of HE demands a redefinition of intellectual agency and critical engagement with technological transformations.
Keywords:
Generative Artificial Intelligence
Higher education
Critical thinking
Academic integrity
Intellectual engagement
China
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