More than half of undergraduates admit they are using artificial intelligence (AI) programmes to help with their assignments, a new study has revealed.
A survey conducted in November by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) questioned more than 1,200 UK undergraduates through UCAS. The think tank found that 53 per cent of students were using AI to help them prepare materials for their assignments.
Of these students, one in four students use systems such as Google Bard or ChatGPT to generate topics and one in eight use them to create content but admit they edit the text before submitting it.
Additionally, 5 per cent of these students admitted they copy and paste unedited AI-generated content and pass it along as their own text in assessments.
Policy manager at Hepi and author of the report, Josh Freeman, told the Telegraph: “Students trust institutions to spot the use of AI tools and they feel staff understand how AI works. As a result, rather than having AI chatbots write their essays, students are using AI in more limited ways: to help them study but not to do all the work.
“However, action is urgently needed to stop a new ‘digital divide’ from growing.
“AI tools are still new and often unknown. For every student who uses generative AI every day, there is another who has never opened ChatGPT or Google Bard, which gives some students a huge advantage.
“The divide will only grow larger as generative AI tools become more powerful.
“Rather than merely adopting a punitive approach, institutions should educate students in the effective use of generative AI - and be prepared to provide AI tools where they can aid learning.”
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is currently signing up secondary schools for a new research project that looks at whether the use of AI could help teacher reduce their workload. In a report published last year in November, the EEF argued that “teachers are already using it by “automating tasks”, such as adapting the reading age of texts, and making handouts”.
Education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has said AI “could take much of the “heavy lifting” out of teaching, by marking and making lesson plans”.
Half of the 58 schools taking part in the EEF’s project will be given a toolkit to create assessment materials such as practice questions and mock exams. The lessons will be closely assessed by an individual panel of experts.
Prof Becky Francis, the chief executive of the EEF, said: “The findings from this trial will be an important contribution to the evidence base, bringing us closer to understanding how teachers can use AI.”
