ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN LEGAL EDUCATION: PERCEPTIONS OF EASE OF USE AND USEFULNESS OF CHATGPT AMONG UNDERGRADUATE LAW STUDENTS OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

Abstract

The use of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot, Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT)    
has gained popularity among students. This study used a descriptive survey design as the research 
was interested in both the idea and attitudes of respondents to explore the perceptions of ease of 
use and usefulness of the ChatGPT among undergraduate Law students of Ahmadu Bello 
University, Zaria, in their academic activities. The global integration of AI into various sectors, 
including education and law profession has shown it’s potential to transform the professional 
practices, and also raises concerns about job displacement and the overall impact on human 
interactions. The study employs the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to evaluate the students’ 
perceptions, focusing on the variables of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. A total 
of 1,799 Law students constitute the population of the study, while simple random sampling 
technique was adopted to obtain sample size. Data was collected through both printout and online 
Google form questionnaire to obtain data from the respondents. Also research questions were 
answered using descriptive statistics (Mean and Standard Deviation-SD) using a decision mean 
value of 2.50. The results showed that the majority of the students (74.45%) are aware of ChatGPT, 
even though, its level of usage varies significantly among them. However, the perceived ease of 
use of ChatGPT among the students was a generally positive. Furthermore, the students perceived 
ChatGTP usefulness as moderately in their academic tasks. This suggest its potential for broader 
application into both legal education and other academic fields.