Olayinka, O. and Dania, A. 2026. The psychology of preference: Helping HE educators reframe student engagement, assessment authenticity and professional identity in post-GenAI construction education. iBEE & RICS Accredited Providers Conference . London 10 - 11 Sep 2026
| Title | The psychology of preference: Helping HE educators reframe student engagement, assessment authenticity and professional identity in post-GenAI construction education. |
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| Authors | Olayinka, O. and Dania, A. |
| Type | Workshop item |
| Abstract | Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has intensified a longstanding problem in professional education: polished outputs do not necessarily provide sufficient evidence of the reasoning through which those outputs were produced. This paper develops the Psychology of Preference (PoP), an educator-facing, human-centred pedagogical framework originating in construction and built environment education. PoP is founded on the proposition that a preference, choice or initial professional position can become pedagogically valuable when it is used as an entry point through which a learner articulates how an emerging judgement has been formed. Preference is therefore not treated as evidence of personality, competence or professional suitability; its educational value lies in the explanation, unpacking and professional connection that follow it. Drawing on symbolic interactionism, self-explanation research, cognitive apprenticeship, reflective practice, situated learning and professional identity formation, the paper proposes a six-stage iterative cycle: Prompt, Explain, Unpack, Connect, Evidence and Refine. Ethical guardrails emphasise non-diagnosis, learner-owned interpretation, psychological safety, voluntary depth, cultural humility, accessible participation and epistemic humility regarding what verbal accounts can reveal about cognition. Applications are illustrated in quantity surveying, apprenticeship learning, AI-aware assessment and professional education. The paper positions PoP as a theoretically grounded pedagogical proposition rather than an empirically validated pedagogy, and sets out a phased research agenda for feasibility, mechanism, comparative and longitudinal evaluation. Its proposed contribution is configurational: organising established pedagogical mechanisms around preference as a low-stakes entry point into learner-articulated professional reasoning. |
| Keywords | psychology of preference; professional reasoning; professional judgement; construction education; generative AI; authentic assessment; apprenticeship education |
| Year | 2026 |
| Conference | iBEE & RICS Accredited Providers Conference |