Date
Publisher
arXiv
GenAI systems such as ChatGPT are increasingly discussed in programming education, but the ways in which the research literature conceptualizes and frames their role remain unclear. This chapter applies text mining to publications indexed in a leading academic database to map scholarly discourse on ChatGPT in programming education. Term frequency analysis, phrase pattern extraction, and topic modeling reveal four dominant themes: pedagogical implementation, student-centered learning and engagement, AI infrastructure and human-AI collaboration, and assessment, prompting, and model evaluation. The literature prioritizes classroom practice and learner interaction, with comparatively limited attention to assessment design and institutional governance. Across studies, ChatGPT is positioned both as a learning aid that supports explanation, feedback, and efficiency and as a pedagogical risk linked to overreliance, unreliable outputs, and academic integrity concerns. These findings support responsible integration and highlight the need for stronger assessment and governance mechanisms.
Study at a glance
- Question: How does academic research frame and discuss the use of ChatGPT in programming education?
- Setting and data: Scopus database; 69 open-access journal articles and conference papers on ChatGPT in programming education.
- Method: Text mining using term frequency, phrase pattern analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, complemented by manual document review.
Why it matters
Although ChatGPT is increasingly discussed in programming education, how academic literature conceptualizes its role remains unclear. Most studies focus on isolated settings and rarely connect pedagogical and ethical dimensions within a single framework.
Key findings
- Topic modeling identified four core themes: student-centered learning (49%), AI infrastructure (23%), pedagogical use (19%), and assessment or prompt evaluation (9%).
- Across the analyzed studies, researchers framed ChatGPT both as an aid for explanations and feedback and as a risk for academic integrity and overreliance.
- The literature prioritizes classroom practice and learner interaction, giving comparatively little attention to assessment design and institutional governance.
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