REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1594343
Generative AI Governance Model in Educational Research
Provisionally accepted
- University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This paper presents a scoping review on the application of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in educational research and proposes a living GenAI governance model to ensure a critical, responsible, and ethical usage of GenAI at macro, meso, and micro levels. Employing a quantitative and qualitative integration methodology, this review utilised two software tools: VOSviewer provided an initial overview of the field, while Bibliometrix revealed its conceptual structure. Through a twodimensional map, subthemes were categorised into four quadrants: motor themes, basic themes, emerging or disappearing themes, and niche themes. Following the bibliometric analysis, we conducted a more detailed examination through content analysis by reviewing the titles and abstracts of 194 publications, selecting 35 pertinent articles. Based on these findings, we propose a Living GenAI Governance Model that maintains an ethical foundation and a dynamic perspective for using GenAI in educational research. The study's limitations serve as starting points for future research, as this review utilised only one database (WoS). Future studies should expand on the use of databases and include updated references, given the rapid theoretical production and practical application in this field. The target audience for this article is diverse and spans multiple levels, including policymakers, academic authorities, university managers, students, teachers, and researchers. The primary contribution of this work lies in its comprehensive and structured vision of the model, which facilitates the study of inter-level relationships and the dynamic mapping of its various components. First-generation AI applications, which apply AI solely to specific tasks and are commonly known as artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), are widely used. One example is Facebook which recognises faces in images and tags users. The second generation, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), is capable of reasoning, planning, and solving problems independently, even for tasks beyond their initial design. The third generation, Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), would have the capability to address complex problems, make decisions, and potentially possess consciousness and emotions when interacting with humans (Alam and Hasan , Kaplan and Haenlein 2019).
Keywords: GenAI, Education, Governance model, Bibliometrics, Content Analysis, Conceptual structure mapping, Living GenAI Governance Model
Received: 15 Mar 2025; Accepted: 13 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pinho, Costa and Pinho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Isabel Pinho, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.