WIP Productive Uses of Generative AI: Preliminary Findings from an Electrical and Computer Engineering Capstone Course

This work-in-progress, research-to-practice paper examines how students have used generative AI (GAI) productively and with permission to complete their senior capstone course in an undergraduate electrical and computer engineering program. Data were extracted from two sources: faculty lists of permissible use and student feedback. Data show that GAI was used to clarify concepts; generate bibliographies; summarize literature; write code; classify phenomena; edit written work; and produce models. Similar student use has been reported in other engineering education contexts. One striking finding is that some students elected not to use GAI. They reasoned that the capstone project was too high stakes a task to risk submitting incorrect work as they were uncertain about their command of the subject matter to confidently vet the AI's outputs. This study is part of a larger discussion on how to productively deploy GAI in classrooms. It proposes a preliminary cache of uses specific to electrical and computer engineering and it may prove useful to engineering instructors who wish to create assessment tasks that leverage GAI.