Project 21: Leadership Education and Artificial Intelligence

Leadership Education and Artificial Intelligence

Educational leaders are increasingly confronted by discourses about the possibilities and threats of artificial intelligence (AI) in education. Leadership is typically framed as a learnable process of influencing a group to achieve a common goal and is embedded in an ecosystem of dynamic interconnections among people and resources. However, research has yet to fully show how non-human actors such as AI come to matter in educational leadership and, more specifically, leadership education.

This study investigates how generative AI (genAI) technologies reshape learning about leadership in everyday education practices, examining what it means to become a leader nowadays. It connects to studies on genAI in education by considering what AI consists of, what it does, and what it makes people do under certain conditions.

The study uses a sociomaterial approach to explore how becoming a leader is the result of relations between humans, technologies, and other material entities within a specific ecology. An ethnographic case study at a Chinese university reveals two main findings: the ecology promoting AI-driven leadership figures and the co-shaping of these figures by students and genAI. This study emphasises the importance of understanding leadership education beyond human-centric and technology-centric perspectives, introducing new analytical concepts for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Project Leader: Lanze Vanermen (Department of Educational Studies, Academy of Future Education, XJTLU)

Project Members: Li, Na  (Department of Educational Studies, Academy of Future Education, XJTLU); Wang, Qian (Research Director, Academy of Future Education, XJTLU); Meng, Yi (Learning Institute for Future Excellence, XJTLU)

The research team will present the conceptual framework and preliminary results at the Special Session about AI and Education during the International Conference on Higher Education Learning and Teaching 2024.

Title: Research assistants for project LE&AI: Leadership Education and Artificial Intelligence
See also Co-curricular Activity (CCA) Plans Information Collection Form-Fall 2024.

Description:
Are you interested in conducting qualitative research about leadership education and artificial intelligence (AI)? If so, the LE&AI project is for you! Dr. Vanermen, with Dr. Wang, Dr. Li, and Dr. Meng, investigates how automated technologies shape what it means to become an educational leader. The project draws on the emerging sociomaterial approach, a set of theoretical and methodological principles to investigate what technologies do and make people do in everyday situations. In this ethnographic case study, the team analyses how generative AI ends up in leadership education, what it does, and what it makes students do. The team needs your help with challenging but intellectually rewarding fieldwork during the first semester!

Responsibilities:
1. Review relevant educational literature (e.g., book chapters, journal articles, policies);
2. Collect and process research data (e.g., observations, interviews);
3. Co-organise research seminars on project-related topics (e.g., about AI, leadership education, qualitative methods);
4. Translate and/or transcribe data (e.g., websites, documents, interviews);
5. Create project-related artwork (e.g., designing a logo, webpage, brochure, slides);
6. Communicate with stakeholders/participants and manage public relations (e.g., via social media).

Expected outcomes:
1. Knowledge: You gain state-of-the-art academic knowledge about AI, educational leadership, and sociomaterial approaches in education;
2. Academic skills: You learn to perform educational and ethnographic research, data collection specifically, in and about AI-intensive practices;
3. Organisation skills: You learn to co-organise research seminars related to research projects;
4. Attitudes: You start to develop the critical and ethical attitude of an educational, qualitative researcher, capable of acting responsibly toward different actors in the university ecosystem.
5. Creativity: You begin to create (digital) artwork that helps disseminate the research project and its findings to (inter)national audiences.
6. Communication skills: You gain experience in effectively communicating research/related matters with (inter)national stakeholders;

Important information:
The most important research activities will take place throughout the first semester on Fridays between 14:00 and 19:00. Flexible work schedules can be discussed with the team coordinator.
Start of the activity: 16/09/2024
End of the activity: 13/09/2024
Workload: +- 6 hours per week. (max. 78 hours)
Offered positions: 2

Applying:
Please send your CV and a brief cover letter detailing your interest and relevant experience to Dr. Lanze Vanermen at lanze.vanermen@xjtlu.edu.cn. Having a sociology, anthropology or qualitative research background is welcomed but by no means required.

Application deadline: 16/09/2024