Between Promise and Peril: Educators’ Perspectives on ChatGPT and Its Impact on Professional Identity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53761/d7vte220Keywords:
Self-identity theory, Technology Acceptance, Chat GPT, Professional Identity, GenAIAbstract
This study examines how academics interpret the role of ChatGPT in higher education, focusing on its integration into academic practice, perceived risks, and implications for professional identity. While existing research has often emphasised student use or general adoption of GenAI, less attention has been given to academics’ own accounts of how ChatGPT reshapes teaching, research, assessment and role meaning. Drawing on qualitative survey data from academic staff at the University of Liverpool Management School, and informed by self-identity theory and identity work, the study uses thematic analysis to examine three interrelated dimensions: functional integration, perceived risks and challenges, and academic identity and role transformation. The findings show that academics incorporate ChatGPT in bounded and conditional ways to support writing, synthesis, ideation, teaching preparation, assessment and feedback, while retaining responsibility for judgement, contextualisation and final outputs. At the same time, participants identified concerns relating to academic integrity, originality, dependency, epistemic reliability, institutional credibility and accountability. Beyond functional use and risk evaluation, ChatGPT prompted reflection on professional identity, including concerns about deskilling, role ambiguity and future relevance, alongside the reconfiguration of academics as facilitators, curators and evaluators of AI-supported knowledge. The study contributes an integrated account of ChatGPT as a socio-professional catalyst that simultaneously expands academic possibilities, introduces new risks and reshapes understanding of academic expertise, authorship and responsibility.
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