The influence of Artificial Intelligence on the academic performance of students in higher institutions in Oyo state, Nigeria

Abstract

With modern technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) has brought a great change to higher education, giving new opportunities to learn and succeed in academic activities. In developing countries such as Oyo State, Nigeria, it has not been studied well though. This paper explores the impacts of AI technologies to academic performance of students in universities and polytechnics concerning learning engagement, assessment results, and challenges associated with it.A mixed methods design was used, which involved quantitative data, which is an online survey of 250 students, and qualitative data using semi-structured interviews of 25 respondents. It is shown that personalized learning (46%), research support (34%), and concerns about over-reliance on AI (24%), are the most frequent uses of the AI among the students. Whereas almost two-thirds of students judged their academic results to be above average, 90% stated that the policies at their institutions on AI were moderately effective. The paper indicates that AI would help to improve educational achievements when introduced in a responsible way within the academic frameworks. In order to maximize its advantages, the study proposes the need to improve digital literacy efforts to make digital students employ AI successfully and autonomously, to create a balanced-use of AI in order not to over depend on it, as well as to establish coherent institutional policies concerning AI usage. The ethical principles and the responsible introduction of AI should be embraced by institutions to promote thinking critically and harness the potentials of the AI in individualizing learning and enhancing the educational outcomes.