Exploring Students’ Perceptions of ChatGPT: Thematic Analysis and Follow-Up Survey

ChatGPT has sparked both excitement and skepticism in education. To analyze its impact on teaching and learning it is crucial to understand how students perceive ChatGPT and assess its potential and challenges. Toward this, we conducted a two-stage study with senior students in a computer engineering program ( $n=56$ ). In the first stage, we asked the students to evaluate ChatGPT using their own words after they used it to complete one learning activity. The returned responses (3136 words) were analyzed by coding and theme building (36 codes and 15 themes). In the second stage, we used the derived codes and themes to create a 27-item questionnaire. The students responded to this questionnaire three weeks…