Vol. 72 No. 2 (2026): Ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence
Articles

The EEPA framework for ethical evaluation of AI in university well-being

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  • Emgelberth Vargas,
  • Alberto Luis Ramírez
Emgelberth Vargas
Instituto Pedagógico de Caracas (IPC) / Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador (UPEL)Escuela de Psicología, Carver University
Bio
Alberto Luis Ramírez
Escuela de Ingeniería de Sistemas, Carver University
Bio

Published 2026-07-06 — Updated on 2026-07-07

Keywords

  • Artificial intelligence in education,
  • Student psychological well-being,
  • AI ethics,
  • Digital mental health,
  • University governance,
  • Algorithmic dependency
    • ...More
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Copyright (c) 2026 AULA Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Emgelberth Vargas, & Ramírez, A. L. . (2026). The EEPA framework for ethical evaluation of AI in university well-being. AULA Revista De Humanidades Y Ciencias Sociales, 72(2). https://doi.org/10.33413/aulahcs.2026.72i2.484

Abstract

The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems into the emotional and psychological support of university students has turned a technical problem into a first-order ethical concern. Drawing on a critical review and documentary analysis of specialized literature published between 2019 and 2025, this article examines the relationship between algorithmic mediation of psychological well-being and the subjective experience of adolescents in higher education.

The study adopts a documentary analytical review design (Fink, 2019; Grant & Booth, 2009), drawing on 37 primary sources retrieved from Scopus, PsycINFO, ERIC, and Web of Science, supplemented by grey literature searches in Google Scholar. The review period spans specialized literature published between 2019 and 2025.

The analysis identifies three tensions that structure the contemporary debate, though not with equal weight. The most discussed, and paradoxically the most poorly framed, concerns the partial efficacy of AI systems against their constitutive empathic limitations. The second, less visible but equally urgent, is the risk that democratizing access narratives may conceal processes of commodification of student distress. The third, and in the authors' view the most underestimated in the recent literature, is the possibility that intensive use of these tools erodes, rather than strengthens, the psychological autonomy of the student as a subject in formation. The findings indicate that available evidence shows positive effects limited to mild symptoms over the short term, while risks of algorithmic dependency, commodification of emotional data, and institutional disengagement remain systematically underestimated. In response, the article proposes the EEPA framework, Efficacy, Equity, Privacy, and Autonomy, as an analytical instrument for the critical evaluation of AI systems oriented toward student well-being. It concludes that the ethical legitimacy of these tools depends on specific institutional, pedagogical, and regulatory conditions, the construction of which is an urgent responsibility of higher education.

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