Human-Mediated AI in Educational Management: Authority, Ethics, and Accountability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26811/peuradeun.v14i3.2706Keywords:
Human-Mediated Algorithmic Management, Human-Centered AI, Educational Management, Professional Discretion, Algorithmic AccountabilityAbstract
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to support educational management, yet limited empirical attention has been paid to how managers retain authority when AI-generated information enters consequential decisions. This study analyzed how educational managers interpreted, verified, accepted, modified, or rejected AI-generated recommendations while maintaining human agency, professional responsibility, contextual discretion, and ethical judgement. An interpretive qualitative multiple-case study was conducted in three public junior secondary schools in Pidie Regency, Aceh, involving 14 adult institutional actors. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, and institutional documents and analyzed thematically within-case and cross-case comparisons. The findings showed that AI functioned as decision support rather than as an autonomous decision-maker. Its outputs acquired managerial relevance through four interconnected forms of human mediation: interpretation, verification, contextualization, and intervention through acceptance, supplementation, modification, or rejection. Human responsibility remained identifiable because school personnel retained authority over the evidentiary and contextual suitability of AI outputs. The study refines human-mediated algorithmic management as a process-oriented account of meaningful human control and highlights the need for institutional procedures that document verification, contextual considerations, and reasons for using or altering AI-generated information.
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