Pedagogical Promise and Peril of AI

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.