University of Michigan School of Information PhD student Aadarsh Padiyath has published his first paper while attending UMSI. The paper, “A Realist Review of Undergraduate Student Attitudes towards Ethical Interventions in Technical Computing Courses” addresses the need for integrating ethics education into undergraduate computing curricula and offers “guidance to intervention designers, researchers and educators seeking to meaningfully engage students with ethics in computing education.” 

The paper was published in January with the ACM Transactions on Computing Education. The publication of a PhD student’s first paper is a big milestone in their career, initiating them into the scholarly community as producers of knowledge. UMSI supports their work as part of our mission to share knowledge. 

Padiyath is a third year student at UMSI. He studied computer science and interactive artificial intelligence at the Georgia Institute of Technology before joining UMSI. His research interests focus on computing education, ethics and human computer interaction. His research interests focus on computing education, ethics and human computer interaction. 

He is currently developing methods to measure student attitudes and classroom culture around artificial intelligence, social justice and ethics in computing courses. 

“This work aims to inform pedagogical approaches toward issues such as AI bias and the societal impacts of technology,” he says. 

Padiyath is expected to graduate in 2026. His thesis advisors are UMSI assistant professor Barbara Ericson and UMSI professor Mark Guzdial. 

Padiyath says he loves the thought-provoking discussions he has with students and faculty at UMSI. 

“I love hearing what everyone is working on,” he says. “I also appreciate how the PhD program gradually builds our research skills through milestone projects, giving us practice in applying the researcher mindset.

“But above all, it's the passionate people in my own field that make UMSI such a good place to learn and collaborate.” 

Read “A Realist Review of Undergraduate Student Attitudes towards Ethical Interventions in Technical Computing Courses” on the ACM Transactions for Computing Education and see the abstract below: 

As computing educators begin to recognize that their students need strong ethical foundations, there is a growing interest to integrate meaningful ethics education into undergraduate computing curricula. In order to achieve this, it is crucial to understand how students respond to ethical interventions in the classroom. This review examines the acceptance of ethical interventions in undergraduate computing courses, using the realist synthesis method to identify underlying theories of student acceptance, and refine them through available studies. Four theories were identified in a synthesis of 13 reports, providing insight into what may improve student attitudes towards ethical interventions in which contexts and under which circumstances. The findings of this realist review offer guidance to intervention designers, researchers, and educators seeking to meaningfully engage students with ethics in computing education

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Learn more about Aadarsh Padiyath by visiting his UMSI profile. 

Apply to UMSI’s PhD in Information.