23 Case Study: Using GenAI for research – revisited
The scenario
Leonard is getting ready to work on his capstone paper on technology use in college sports. He wants to make some connections between the use of wearable technologies (like smartwatches or fitness trackers) and sports performance. He prompted Google Gemini with
Prompt: Give me 5 citations to articles on this research question “What are the effects and ethical considerations of sharing wearable data in college sports?”
- Kuk, J. (2020). Should Your Wearables Be Shareable? The Ethics of Wearable Technology in Collegiate Athletics. Marquette Sports Law Review, 31(1), 163-189. Retrieved from https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol31/iss1/9
- Han, H., & Hyun, Y. (2025). Editorial: Emerging digital technologies as a game changer in the sport industry. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 7, Article 1605138. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2025.1605138/full
- Wieland, A., Feiler, M., & Haischer, J. (2024). The Impact of Wearable Technologies on Marginal Gains in Sports Performance: An Integrative Overview on Advances in Sports, Exercise, and Health. Applied Sciences, 14(15), 6649. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/15/6649
- Kelly, M. (2020, March 2). Navigating the potential pitfalls of tracking college athletes. UW News. Retrieved from https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/03/02/tracking-college-athletes/
- Patel, S., & Chen, L. (2023). The neuromodulatory effects of virtual reality immersion on athletic performance in collegiate swimmers. Journal of Sports Technology & Human Movement, 15(3), 211-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/12345678.2023.98765432
What should Leonard’s next step be to responsibly engage with these resources?
Before Leonard goes off to find all those articles, there are some really important steps he needs to take:
- Check with his instructor. Leonard needs to ask his instructor what kind of AI use is allowed in their class if it wasn’t already clear from the syllabus.
- If GenAI isn’t allowed: He’ll have to search for articles in a library database using keywords from his research question. There’s a 24/7 chat feature run by real human librarians to ask if he needs help.
- If his instructor or syllabus says this is an appropriate use of AI, he should:
- Check if the articles are real. Leonard should then look up each article from his AI-generated list in a library database (or several databases) to see if it actually exists.
- Read and decide. If an article exists and looks like it’s about his topic, he should read the short summary (called an abstract). Then, he can download the full article and decide if it’s truly useful for his project.
Ways to check for real sources :
- Follow the links at the end of the citation to get to the original full-text of the source.
- Paste the citation into Google Scholar: The simplest way to check if an article exists is to copy and paste the citation into Google Scholar.
- Don’t give up if you can’t find it! Remember, not every article is listed in Google Scholar. Leonard should try searching in other library databases.It might be a “hallucination” if he still can’t find the article in any database, it’s possible that GenAI just made it up.
Finally, even if he uses GenAI, Leonard should also do his own direct searches in a library database. He should look at multiple sources and check information across different websites to make sure his research is balanced and unbiased, not just relying on what one GenAI or one source tells him.
