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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1522841
This article is part of the Research Topic AI's Impact on Higher Education: Transforming Research, Teaching, and Learning View all 9 articles
A Systematic Review of the Early Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Higher Education Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.
Provisionally accepted- Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents many opportunities and challenges to teaching and learning in higher education. However, compared to studentor administration-facing AI, little attention has been given to the impact of AI on faculty's perspective or their curriculum, instruction, and assessment (CIA) practices. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of articles published within the first nine months following the release of ChatGPT. After screening following PRISMA statement guidelines, our review yielded 33 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Most of these studies (n = 17) were conducted in Asia, and simulation and modeling were the most frequently used methods (n = 15). Thematic analysis of the studies resulted in four themes about the impact of AI on CIA triad: (a) generation of new material, (b) reduction of staff workload, (c) automation/optimization of evaluation, and (d) challenges for CIA. Overall, this review informs the promising contribution of AI to higher education CIA practices as well as the potential challenges and problems it introduces. Implications for future research and practices are proposed.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, Large language models, Curriculum, instruction, assessment, Systematic review
Received: 05 Nov 2024; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liang, Stephens and Brown. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jingjing Liang, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, 1150, Auckland, New Zealand
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.