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Examining doctoral students' attitudes toward AI chatbots and ChatGPT use in higher education

Phys · 🇺🇸 public United States · · 369 words · By University
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What to know about Examining doctoral students' attitudes toward AI chatbots and ChatGPT use in higher education

Researchers from the University of Phoenix conducted a quantitative study on 54 doctoral students to analyze the relationship between their attitudes toward AI chatbots and their frequency of ChatGPT usage. The study found that favorable perceptions and the belief in the superiority of AI-generated results correlate with higher usage, suggesting a need for discipline-specific institutional policies.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 8
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center80%
Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Examining doctoral students' attitudes toward AI chatbots and ChatGPT use in higher education Stephanie Baum Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Lead Editor Researchers from the University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies have published research examining…

Why it matters

The article, "Relationship between Students' Attitudes toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their usage of AI Chatbots," appears in the International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures.

Common ground

The quantitative study explored how doctoral students perceive AI chatbots in relation to academic integrity, ethics and educational value.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Researchers from the University of Phoenix conducted a quantitative study on 54 doctoral students to analyze the relationship between their attitudes toward AI chatbots and their frequency of ChatGPT usage. The study found that favorable perceptions and the belief in the superiority of AI-generated results correlate with higher usage, suggesting a need for discipline-specific institutional policies.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-06-doctoral-students-attitudes-ai-chatbots.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 8 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 7
info Single Source 1
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Claim 1: “Suchitra Veera, DBA, faculty member in the University of Phoenix College of Business and Information Technology and lead author of the study.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources, including the University of Phoenix faculty page and EurekAlert!, confirm Suchitra Veera, DBA, is a faculty member in the College of Business and Information Technology and the lead author of the study.
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web search NEUTRAL — Dr. Suchitra Veera has been a faculty member at the University since 2007 and teaches in the School of Business and Information Technology.University of Phoenix is a terrific online school choice for …
https://www.phoenix.edu/research/about/fellows/dr-suchitra-v…
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web search NEUTRAL — About the authors. Suchitra Veera, DBA, has been a University of Phoenix adjunct faculty member since 2007 and teaches in the College of Business and Information Technology.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131519
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web search NEUTRAL — “AI is rapidly reshaping how students approach research, writing and learning,” said Suchitra Veera, DBA, faculty member in the University of Phoenix College of Business and Information Technology and…
https://nerds.xyz/2026/06/university-phoenix-study-chatgpt-c…
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Claim 2: “Researchers surveyed 54 doctoral students enrolled at a private, online university in the United States”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web search results (one from PRNewswire and another from a different source dated June 9, 2026) explicitly state that 54 doctoral students at a private, online university in the US were surveyed.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the region. Such regions a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Title 54 of the United States Code (54 U.S.C.), entitled National Park Service and Related Programs, is the compilation of the general laws regarding the National Park Service. It is the newest title …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_54_of_the_United_States_…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and a federal c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “Members of the research team also presented the study at the 2025 Knowledge Without Boundaries Conference hosted by University of Phoenix.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of general Wikipedia and web search results about the definition of 'research' and 'ResearchGate', but contains no specific mention of the 2025 Knowledge Without Boundaries Conference or the team presenting there.
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web search NEUTRAL — Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. [1] It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, cha…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research
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web search NEUTRAL — Access 160+ million publication pages and connect with 25+ million researchers. Join for free and gain visibility by uploading your research.
https://www.researchgate.net/
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web search NEUTRAL — 6 days ago · The Open Access journal Research, published in association with CAST, publishes innovative, wide-ranging research in life sciences, physical sciences, engineering and applied science.
https://spj.science.org/journal/research
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Claim 4: “The article, "Relationship between Students' Attitudes toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their usage of AI Chatbots," appears in the International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results explicitly name the article 'Relationship between Students' Attitudes toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their usage of AI Chatbots' and state it appears in the International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and dec…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This glossary of artificial intelligence is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to the study of artificial intelligence (AI), its subdisciplines, and related fields. Related glossarie…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_artificial_intelli…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Regulation of artificial intelligence is the development of public sector policies and laws for promoting and regulating artificial intelligence (AI). The regulatory and policy landscape for AI is an …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_artificial_intel…
+ 2 more evidence sources
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Claim 5: “Researchers from the University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies have published research examining graduate students' attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and their reported use of ChatGPT in higher education environments.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web search results (PRNewswire, EurekAlert, and other news summaries) confirm that researchers from the University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies published research on graduate students' attitudes and use of AI chatbots/ChatGPT.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The University of Phoenix (UoPX) is a private for-profit university headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the certificate, associate, b…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Phoenix
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anna University is a public state university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The main campus is in Guindy. It was originally established on 4 September 1978 and is named after C. N. Annadurai, …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_University
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Grand Canyon University (GCU) is a private Christian university in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The university offers degrees in over 200 areas of study and is administratively divided into nine c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon_University
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 6: “favorable attitudes toward AI chatbot use, perceptions that chatbot-generated results are superior and disagreement with prohibiting chatbot use were positively correlated with reported ChatGPT usage frequency.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm the specific findings regarding the positive correlation between favorable attitudes, perceptions of superiority, disagreement with prohibitions, and ChatGPT usage frequency.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A large language model (LLM) is an AI model (typically a neural network) trained on a vast amount of text for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. LLMs can typically gene…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Prompt injection is a cybersecurity exploit and an attack vector in which innocuous-looking inputs (i.e. prompts) are designed to cause unintended behavior in machine learning models, particularly lar…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_injection
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In the field of artificial intelligence, sycophancy is a tendency of large language models (LLMs) and other AI assistants to tailor their responses to what they predict the user wants to hear rather t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycophancy_(artificial_intelli…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 7: “Suchitra Veera et al, Relationship between Students' Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their usage of AI Chatbots, International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures (2026). DOI: 10.46787/ijaipil.v2026i1.6968”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results provide the full citation, including the authors (Suchitra Veera et al), the journal (International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures), and the year 2026.
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web search NEUTRAL — Suchitra Veera et al, Relationship between Students' Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their usage of AI Chatbots, International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Fu…
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-doctoral-students-attitudes-ai…
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web search NEUTRAL — Journal: International Journal of AI in Pedagogy, Innovation, and Learning Futures, 2026(1). Method of research: Quantitative survey study. Subject of research: Graduate and doctoral students.
https://aicompetence.org/university-of-phoenix-researchers-p…
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web search NEUTRAL — 2017 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychological Science.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/216770261772337…
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Claim 8: “Researchers also found significant differences across fields of study, while no statistically significant gender differences were observed.”
CORROBORATED
Three separate web search results confirm that the study found significant differences across fields of study but no statistically significant gender differences.
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web search NEUTRAL — No statistically significant gender differences were observed in attitudes toward AI chatbots. Findings support the need for discipline-sensitive institutional guidance and policies regarding ethical …
https://aicompetence.org/university-of-phoenix-researchers-p…
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web search NEUTRAL — but significant differences across fields of study. Favorable attitudes toward chatbot use, perceptions that chatbot-generated results were superior, and disagreement with prohibiting.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/403063886_Relations…
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web search NEUTRAL — Researchers also found significant differences across fields of study, while no statistically significant gender differences were observed. Key findings from the study includeSignificant differences i…
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-doctoral-students-attitudes-ai…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.