Cognitive Skills in the Age of AI: Computing Students and Experts Perceptions

Neha Rani, Vu Minh Anh Le, Austin M. Spangler, Erta Cenko

AI is becoming increasingly integrated into daily workflows, especially in computing. We are gradually shifting towards an AI-rich future, an impending yet unknown one. One important emerging concern is whether we are accordingly preparing our future computing workforce. Further, we need to know what the important cognitive skills are to remain relevant in the computing workforce and if there are changes in cognitive skill importance. To investigate this direction, we conducted a mixed-methods study, collecting perceptions from computing students and computing experts regarding the importance of cognitive skills in the past, present, and future. We report that the perceived importance of most cognitive skills will decrease in the future, with an AI-rich environment, but critical thinking skills remain important. Further, we report reasons collected through interviews on why the importance of cognitive skills will change and how future computing students can prepare for it.