Auburn research partnership indicates need for early, institution-wide AI literacy education

Along with researchers from James Madison University, three collaborators in the Office of the Provost have recently published within Research & Practice in Assessment’s Special Issue – AI in Assessment. Jaime Miller, Stuart Miller and Rachel Whitman Rotch gathered data beginning in the summer of 2025, investigating students’ artificial intelligence (AI) literacy levels utilizing the Generative AI Literacy Assessment Test (GLAT).

The group’s findings highlight the need for institution-wide early AI literacy education that emphasizes ethical reasoning, metacognitive awareness and evaluation. The data indicate that higher education institutions should not assume incoming students are AI-literate and should provide a broad-based education to all students rather than specific, targeted interventions. Future research directions include longitudinally tracking and evaluating AI literacy development throughout students’ college experiences, while continuing to refine assessments measuring AI-related ethical reasoning and metacognition.

“What we found is that incoming students are already using AI tools—but their underlying understanding of how those tools work, and how to evaluate them critically, is still very limited,” said Stuart Miller, assistant director of Academic Data Acquisitions and Reporting. “This study gives us a much-needed baseline. Now the real work is designing curriculum and experiences that actually move those numbers.”

The group recently presented their findings at the 2026 Association for Psychological Science Annual Convention in Barcelona, Spain. Their poster, entitled “AI Everywhere, Literacy Nowhere: The Need for Generative AI Education,” was extremely popular among attendees.

Having partnered with James Madison University once in the past, the success of these collaborations has encouraged the group to continue with their partnership with two more joint studies coming later this summer and into early fall.

To read the study in its entirety, visit aub.ie/GenerativeAILiteracy.