The Mediating Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Literacy in Graduate Seminar Coursework and Ethical Preparedness: Insights from the Graduate Students

Abstract

Given the lack of national and institutional Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance frameworks, the governance and education of AI in Philippine higher education often rest with faculty. This makes course-level integration a productive starting point. This pilot study examined how graduate students develop ethical preparedness for AI, arguing that the relationship between such preparedness and their exposure to AI ethics instruction is mediated through operational literacy on AI. A mixed-methods intervention was conducted with 39 graduate students enrolled in the Master of Arts Major in Educational Management, who participated in a 20-hour AI literacy and ethics course embedded in a Graduate Seminar. To capture the Philippine education realities often overlooked in global frameworks, a researcher-developed questionnaire was employed to reconceptualize and measure AI literacy and ethical preparedness in the local context. Quantitative results showed significant improvements, with Artificial Intelligence literacy mediating the relationship between ethical preparedness and artificial intelligence literacy (β = .46, p < .001). Qualitative insights through classroom observations illustrated how students translated abstract principles into situated judgment. This paper extends AI ethics discourse by reframing it not only as a matter of principles but also as a function of operational literacies that enable educators to exercise situated ethical judgment, especially within local contexts.