Table 3 Summary of qualitative themes... | Emerald Publishing

Table 3

Summary of qualitative themes from student reflections

Theme	Description	Linked hypotheses	Representative student perspectives
Efficacy of text-based GenAI	Students found ChatGPT valuable for developing brand and customer profiles, generating concepts, and clarifying ideas	H2a/H2b, H3a/H3b, H5a/H5b	Participant A: “GenAI is able to help create fresh ideas that I may not have thought of myself. Also, it can immediately create a professionally written, clear brand profile. This saves time and makes it easier to clearly identify the brand profile.”
Efficacy of text-based GenAI		H2a/H2b, H3a/H3b, H5a/H5b	Participant B: “I would use ChatGPT again because was a useful resource to create an accurate brand profile with our own information.”
Limitations of image-based GenAI	Students noted creative potential but low accuracy in AI-generated visuals, reducing usefulness for fashion-specific tasks	H3bH4b	Participant C: “I used it for our brand logo. It does not create words so it was not super helpful, but it did give me a good starting point and I used it for brainstorming. I would use it again for logo inspiration; but honestly, I would probably end up just skipping that step all together and starting from scratch on my own. It seems to require more input and effort than what I get out.”
			Participant D: “I thought the photos looked faked and overly generated.”
			Participant E: “Not necessarily, only because the images were not very accurate and they looked a bit distorted.”
			Participant F: “No I would not because they often come out distorted and inaccurate. Unless I was looking for a relatively simple image with specific colors in it then maybe I would but I would not initially expect the image to meet what I am looking for.”
Future applications of GenAI	Students viewed GenAI as a valuable future tool for career development but stressed ethical awareness and creativity	H6a/H6b, H7a/H7b, H8a/H8b	Participant G: “In the future I imagine using this tool within my job in order to write email or help with presentations. It is also useful in daily life for simple questions or problem solving. As the technology become more advanced I think things like Bing Image creator will be more specific and realistic which could be used in the future to create a photo of target customers without the flaws.”
Future applications of GenAI		H6a/H6b, H7a/H7b, H8a/H8b	Participant H: “I really believe that it is very useful source as long as it is kept under control. It is reflection of ones idea but more detailed, however it is easy to get too caught up with it. My biggest concern is that it is very easy that the students might get too reliant on the GenAI tools.”

Theme	Description	Linked hypotheses	Representative student perspectives
Efficacy of text-based GenAI	Students found ChatGPT valuable for developing brand and customer profiles, generating concepts, and clarifying ideas	H2a/H2b, H3a/H3b, H5a/H5b	Participant A: “GenAI is able to help create fresh ideas that I may not have thought of myself. Also, it can immediately create a professionally written, clear brand profile. This saves time and makes it easier to clearly identify the brand profile.”
Efficacy of text-based GenAI		H2a/H2b, H3a/H3b, H5a/H5b	Participant B: “I would use ChatGPT again because was a useful resource to create an accurate brand profile with our own information.”
Limitations of image-based GenAI	Students noted creative potential but low accuracy in AI-generated visuals, reducing usefulness for fashion-specific tasks	H3bH4b	Participant C: “I used it for our brand logo. It does not create words so it was not super helpful, but it did give me a good starting point and I used it for brainstorming. I would use it again for logo inspiration; but honestly, I would probably end up just skipping that step all together and starting from scratch on my own. It seems to require more input and effort than what I get out.”
			Participant D: “I thought the photos looked faked and overly generated.”
			Participant E: “Not necessarily, only because the images were not very accurate and they looked a bit distorted.”
			Participant F: “No I would not because they often come out distorted and inaccurate. Unless I was looking for a relatively simple image with specific colors in it then maybe I would but I would not initially expect the image to meet what I am looking for.”
Future applications of GenAI	Students viewed GenAI as a valuable future tool for career development but stressed ethical awareness and creativity	H6a/H6b, H7a/H7b, H8a/H8b	Participant G: “In the future I imagine using this tool within my job in order to write email or help with presentations. It is also useful in daily life for simple questions or problem solving. As the technology become more advanced I think things like Bing Image creator will be more specific and realistic which could be used in the future to create a photo of target customers without the flaws.”
Future applications of GenAI		H6a/H6b, H7a/H7b, H8a/H8b	Participant H: “I really believe that it is very useful source as long as it is kept under control. It is reflection of ones idea but more detailed, however it is easy to get too caught up with it. My biggest concern is that it is very easy that the students might get too reliant on the GenAI tools.”

Note(s): Themes derived from open and axial coding of 52 student reflections

Source(s): Authors’ own work