Generative AI Literacy: A Proposed Way Forward
In this article, co-authors Stefanie Beninger, Alex Reppel, Julie Stanton and Forrest Watson reflect on the inspiration behind their research article, “Facilitating Generative AI Literacy in the Face of Evolving Technology: Interventions in Marketing Classrooms,” published in the Journal of Marketing Education. Their post can be found below the paper’s abstract.
The emergence of generative AI (GenAI) has illustrated that higher education needs to adapt to the technology. Its speed of evolution requires that we adequately prepare students for an ever-changing landscape. Toward achieving that aim, we draw on the concept of interpretive flexibility, where the interpretations, uses, and outcomes of a new technology can differ and evolve over time, often with dominant stakeholders controlling the process. To engage marketing students in this process, we propose that they be presented with these diverse interpretations now as part of GenAI literacy. Specifically, we offer three small-scale pedagogical interventions designed to address this urgent need. Given the newness of GenAI, our interventions are designed to be infused into existing marketing instruction, instead of requiring a redesign of a curriculum. With each intervention, students not only significantly decrease their confidence in the accuracy of what GenAI produces but also see reasons to examine the implications of it. Both these outcomes, we suggest, could help to maintain interpretive flexibility required to properly respond to and guide the technology as its uses, impacts, and evolution become evident. We encourage educators to prioritize a comprehensive notion of GenAI literacy in their pedagogy to maintain interpretive flexibility.
When Generative AI exploded into public consciousness in late 2022, our research team, which has been involved in a multi-year research focus on marketing pedagogy, recognized the potential for far-reaching implications on education and for marketing. We realized that our students needed to deeply understand this technology and the impact it can have on society, as well as how to use it appropriately and ethically, not only for marketing but also in their studies. To address this, we sought to integrate GenAI into three different marketing courses, at both the Master and Bachelor level, in a meaningful way, which ultimately resulted in the creation of small-scale interventions that can be integrated into stand-alone marketing sessions.
In this paper, we report on these small-scale interventions and propose an enriched framework of GenAI Literacy, which incorporates existing technology, AI, and GenAI Literacy frameworks. Our GenAI Literacy model includes three key aspects understanding, usage, and evaluation (of outputs), and the implications this has for and within the wider socio-ethical context. We argue this literacy is needed to help maintain interpretive flexibility-that is, maintaining the students’ ability to recognize the wider implications and interpretations of the technology across a range of stakeholders in the short- and long-term.
What has proven to be the most challenging about pursuing research on GenAI in business education is how quickly the technology is evolving and how quickly research on GenAI is being released. Simultaneously seeking to teach about and research utilizing the most up-to-date technology in such a fast-changing situation has proven to be a challenge, but a rewarding one. As we argue in the paper, however, for those who are seeking to teach about GenAI in their classrooms, even having a base understanding of the technology and its usage in marketing can be sufficient to start meaningful discussions with students towards bolstering GenAI literacy.
We hope this research motivates instructors to integrate GenAI Literacy into their classrooms in a meaningful way and to help guide discussions at the curriculum- and university-level around GenAI. Hopefully, as instructors and universities alike integrate GenAI into their activities, more research can advance research and practice.
