The ethics of generative artificial intelligence in education under debate. A perspective from the development of a theoretical-practical case study

La ética de la inteligencia artificial generativa en educación a debate. Perspectiva desde el desarrollo de un caso de estudio teórico-práctico

Francisco José García-Peñalvo, Universidad de SalamancaFollow
María José Casañ-Guerrero, Universidad Politécnica de CataluñaFollow
Marc Alier-Forment, Universidad Politécnica de CataluñaFollow
Juan Antonio Pereira-Varela, Universidad del País VascoFollow

DOI

10.22550/2174-0909.4577

Abstract

This article examines the ethics of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in higher education from a theoretical and practical perspective. It reflects the growing importance of teaching ethics in information technology and its impact on society. Its aim is to develop a training model that integrates ethical reflection on GenAI into the education of computer engineering students. To achieve this, a case study is used based on the Social and Environmental Aspects of Computer Science module at the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, in which the theoretical principles of artificial intelligence (AI) ethics are applied through a case study of the use of GenAI within the course. Several examples of GenAI systems within AI applied to education are introduced. One of the examples, developed by the authors, involves an AI assistant built using the LAMB framework that enables students to analyse the proposed case using the PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental) method with the assistant acting as an expert. Students are then required to analyse a similar case study in another domain. The results suggest that this theoretical-practical approach, where abstract concepts of AI ethics and safety are grounded in specific decisions about application and concrete technological artefacts, effectively integrates ethical reflection into engineering education, highlighting the need for multidisciplinary approaches to address emerging ethical challenges in AI and education.

Financiación | Funding

This research is part funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the AvisSA project, (reference PID2020- 118345RB-I00), the Department of Research and Universities of the Regional Government of Catalonia through the 2021 SGR 01412 support for research groups, and the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea through the GIU21/037 contract within the “Call for Funding for Research Groups in the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (2021)” programme.

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Author Biography

Francisco-José García-Peñalvo. Doctorate in Computing from the Universidad de Salamanca. He is a university professor in the Department of Computing and Automation at the Universidad de Salamanca (USAL), with four recognised six-year research blocks, one six-year transfer period, and five-year teaching blocks. He was awarded the Gloria Begué prize for teaching excellence in 2019 and the María de Maeztu prize for research excellence in 2023. Since 2006 he has been director of the GRIAL (Interaction and eLearning research group), a USAL-recognised research group that is a consolidated research unit of the regional government of Castilla y León (UIC 81). He is currently the deputy head of the University Institute of Educational Sciences (IUCE) and the coordinator of the Education in the Knowledge Society Doctoral Programme at the Universidad de Salamanca.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9987-5584

María-José Casañ-Guerrero. Doctor of Sciences (2013) from the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) (2013), she also has a degree in Computer Engineering from the same university (1997). Since 2004 she has worked as a researcher and teacher, giving classes in the UPC’s Faculty of Computing. She has also been an instructor on courses with the Universidad Abierta de Cataluña (UOC). She has one recognised six-year research block and four five-year teaching blocks (two of them with a special mention for teaching quality). She currently teaches modules relating to software engineering projects, databases, social and environmental aspects of computing, and history of computing.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5072-6745

Marc Alier-Forment. Associate professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) since 2002. He has a doctorate in Sustainability and a degree in Computer Engineering from the UPC, and has two recognised six-year research blocks as well as four recognised five-year teaching blocks (three of them with a special mention for teaching quality). His areas of work include computing, information systems, online education, and the ethics of technology. He has participated actively in the Moodle community, collaborating in the creation of modules in the form of wikis, online service layers, and implementing the IMS LTI standard. With more than 25 years’ experience in research and development of educational software, he has published more than 190 scientific articles and is a member of the EduSTEAM research group. He is currently head of the Engineering and Technology Education doctoral programme at the UPC and teaches various modules in the Faculty of Computing in Barcelona. Outside the academic sphere, he is a guitar luthier and has produced various podcasts since 2007.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3922-1516

Juan-Antonio Pereira-Varela. Associate professor in the Computing Faculty of the Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU), where he has been teaching for 20 years. He has a doctorate in Software Engineering (2014) and his research centres on generative AI applied to software engineering, as well as on studying the development of open-source software in this area. He has published numerous articles in both areas, participating in various national research projects and a European project. He has written a book on HTML5 and JavaScript APIs (2021). He was recognised for excellence in teaching based on the student evaluations in four consecutive years (2016–2020). He has been joint head of the ZIUR cybersecurity classroom, and has trained various teams for the SWERC programming competition. He is currently the lead developer on two projects relating to generative AI: RepoSearch, a semantic search engine of computing final degree project dissertations at a national level and LAMB (learning assistant manager and builder), an open-code project to create AI assistants to help learning.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7935-3612

Citación recomendada | Recommended citation

García-Peñalvo, F.-J., Casañ-Guerrero, M.-J., Alier-Forment, M., & Pereira-Valera, J.-A. (2025). The ethics of generative artificial intelligence in education under debate. A perspective from the development of a theoretical-practical case study [La ética de la inteligencia artificial generativa en educación a debate. Perspectiva desde el desarrollo de un caso de estudio teórico-práctico]. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 83(291). https://doi.org/10.22550/2174-0909.4132