Project introduction and background information
In the 4TU.CEE project Virtuous reasoning with AI, Vlasta Sikimić (PI), Yara Daamen, Karolina Doulougeri and Krist Vaesen are launching an educational intervention designed to shape the next generation of virtuously minded engineers. At a time when AI systems influence decisions at every level of society, education faces a defining challenge: teaching students not just to use AI, but to question it. In the new course, Critical thinking in the age of AI, students will engage with intellectual justice to confront algorithmic bias and intellectual honesty to tackle transparency and accountability in AI systems. Through carefully designed learning activities, the project cultivates higher-order thinking about responsible AI use, empowering students to critically examine, ethically design, and challenge intelligent technologies. This initiative directly supports TU/e’s values by educating engineers who build new systems wisely."
Objective and expected outcomes
With the increased use of AI, one of the key challenges is the fact that users are not recognizing biased and unfair outputs. Hence, we want to develop training on intellectual justice in relation to AI. This was not possible during the pilot, since the scale for measuring intellectual justice did not exist. To address this gap, we are in the process of developing an intellectual justice scale. The preregistration for this study can be found in the linked websites. More information on the development of the scale can be found in the added document.
A small-scale educational intervention in the DURU course (academic year 2024-25) showed that introducing intellectual virtues raises awareness of ethical AI issues. We used a combination of real-world cases and reflection activities. While the pre-post survey did not show a significant difference in students’ perception of intellectual virtues, we found that the lectures increased students’ awareness of the concepts and that they were able to understand and apply the concepts in real-world cases as indicated by the qualitative analysis of students’ reflective portfolia.
However, higher-order skills, such as creation of solutions, were rarely found in student reflections. Some students also confused intellectual virtues with broader ethical ones, suggesting difficulty in applying these abstract ideas to real AI situations likely due to limited scaffolding. This proposal addresses those gaps. We will produce online materials in terms of lectures and a reflection platform, which was not done in the pilot study. IE&IS committed to supporting the lecture recordings. This will give students more time to grasp the concepts and develop higher- order thinking. The change is urgent: responsible AI development is now a critical need in both industry and society.
Results and learnings
The developed intellectual justice scale is working as expected, which means the scale can be used to measure intellectual justice before and after the intervention. The educational interventions are currently being created.
Results will follow after the course has been taught.
Recommendations
We have a longer-term ambition to carry the educational intervention further and extend it both in length and in scope, but for this purpose new actions including funding will be requested. The goal would be to have a comprehensive training on AI literacy and the scientifically evidence that this course results in a deep understanding of the promises and challenges with the use of AI. We firmly believe this to be a key skill set students nowadays need to develop.
Practical outcomes
The course will continue. Vlasta Sikimić will teach the course the next years and Krist Vaesen coordinates the course while the IE&IS supports the course. All educational material developed will be re-used in next iterations of the course. This includes the recorded materials. We aim to publish the results of the study in a scientific outlet.