Crisis, AI and the Future of Higher Education

The COVID-19 epidemic has impacted graduate students’ learning and research to varying degrees. To quantitatively analyze this impact, this study focuses on six dimensions: “research communication”, “research data acquisition”, “publication and cultivation process”, “financial support and research topics”, “internship and practice”, and “graduation and job-hunting”. An online questionnaire was distributed to graduate students nationwide in China, yielding 2,586 responses with 2,552 valid samples. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the study found significant correlations between “research communication” and three key dimensions: “research data acquisition” (correlation coefficient = 0.477), “publication and cultivation process” (0.358), and “financial support and research topics” (0.517). Additionally, “research data acquisition” significantly influenced “publication and cultivation process” (0.662), while strong associations were identified between “research data acquisition” and “financial support”, “publication and cultivation process” and “financial support”, as well as “publication and cultivation process” and “practice and job-hunting”. These findings provide critical insights for refining educational policies and graduate training strategies to mitigate pandemic-induced challenges in academic research and career development.