GENERATIVE AI: RECONFIGURING SUPERVISION AND DOCTORAL RESEARCH

Boyd, Philippa and Harding, Debs (2025) GENERATIVE AI: RECONFIGURING SUPERVISION AND DOCTORAL RESEARCH. Building & Cities. (In Press)

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Abstract

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT The uptake of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools has implications for doctoral research and academic publication practices both within Construction Management and in the wider academic context. Unless these implications are understood, GenAI tools have the potential to disrupt traditional relationships between doctoral researchers and their academic supervisors. Rather than exploring the technical competence and reach of GenAI tools, this study explores the nature of these challenges. We present a rounded look at what GenAI use might mean and how its integration into doctoral research processes might shift relationships and affect practice. Informed by structuration theory, the research uses mixed methods to map shifts in agency and structure resulting from the adoption of GenAI tools. Findings highlight that the often-unacknowledged use of GenAI in doctoral research can confer undue agency on the technology which disrupts traditional relationships in an unacknowledged way. The rapid but often unacknowledged uptake of GenAI within doctoral research comes with lack of consideration of the emotional support ascribed by students to the technology. Using metaphors of ‘a covert third wheel’ and ‘a seat at the table’ we conclude that GenAI tools should be openly incorporated into research and practice in a transparent, integrated approach. PRACTICE RELEVANCE ABSTRACT This research has relevance to the academic community both within the built environment disciplines and more general pedagogical implications. By bringing into the open concerns over the reach and rapidity of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) adoption, the paper exposes potential changes to relationships and practices. Academics will be able to understand the shifts in relationships between stakeholders and the possible ramifications on publication. The research exposes the surprising unacknowledged proliferation of GenAI use in doctoral research and its underlying role in providing surrogate emotional support to doctoral students. By giving voice to stakeholders involved in the process of doctoral research the research lays open the lack of ethical frameworks around the use of GenAI and the need to consider the open and supported use of GenAI, and its impact on developing the technical understandings and communication of doctoral researchers. The research lays open some of the debates, concerns and possibilities that GenAI can bring to doctoral research practice, so that they can be intentionally addressed.

Item Type:	Article
Sustainable Development Goals:	Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Keywords:	Ethics, GenAI, Doctoral Research, Supervision, Relationships
Divisions:	School of the Built Environment > Research
Depositing User:	Dr Pippa Boyd
Date Deposited:	11 Jun 2025 11:47
Last Modified:	11 Jun 2025 11:47
URI:	https://ucem.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/169

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