As we continue to witness the rise and development of AI, students and teachers alike are beginning to become aware of its uses in the school system and academia at large. With TikToks promoting its use for writing essays and other schoolwork, the conversation has turned to how this ground-breaking AI may harm higher education -- leading many to consider banning its use altogether. Study.com decided to get some insight on this topic straight from the source, surveying over 100 educators and over 1,000 students to gain more insight into how they feel about the use of ChatGPT in school.
Educator Perceptions of ChatGPT:
- 82% of college professors are aware of ChatGPT, compared to 55% of grade school educators.
- 72% of college professors who are aware of ChatGPT, are concerned about it's impact on cheating, compared to 58% of grade school educators.
- Over a third (34%) of all educators believe that ChatGPT should be banned in schools and universities, while 66% support students having access to it.
- Clearly, the perceived value outweighs the risks, so how do teachers plan on using it? Out of the 21% of educators getting a jump start on this technology:
- 7% use ChatGPT to provide writing prompts.
- 5% use ChatGPT to help teach a class.
- 4% use ChatGPT to create lesson plans.
- 4% use ChatGPT to teach writing styles.
- 3% use ChatGPT as a digital tutor.
Student Perceptions of ChatGPT:
- Over 9 in 10 students are aware of ChatGPT, far more than grade school educators.
- Over 89% of students have used ChatGPT to help with a homework assignment.
- 48% of students admitted to using ChatGPT for an at-home test or quiz, 53% had it write an essay, and 22% had it write an outline for a paper.
- Surprisingly, 72% of college students believe that ChatGPT should be banned from their college's network.
- Perhaps we can thank the 15% of educators who have used ChatGPT to discuss the moral implications of technology as a reason why more students see the negative implications of the AI tool in education.
Here are some of their thoughts about ChatGPT in education:
'I don't think banning it will stop cheating. I think that it creates an opportunity to have discussions with students about why we ask them to do assignments and how cheating won't benefit them.'
'I love that students would have another resource to help answer questions. Do I worry some kids would abuse it? Yes. But they use Google and get answers without an explanation. It's my understanding that CHATGPT explains answers. That would be more beneficial.'
'I think ChatGPT is a crutch that will prevent students from actually needing to learn content. Although I can see its use for small tasks, like how to email a teacher with questions, it also prevents students from developing the soft skills that completing those small tasks allows. I'm also concerned students will try to use it for writing essays or completing assignments, which hampers our ability to assess what the student truly knows.'
'I've heard of ChatGPT, but I don't know very much about it. In terms of its potential to be used for cheating, it seems like a real possibility, but students have myriad ways to cheat, so I can't imagine this being a paradigm shift. It sounds like something that could be extremely useful for students who are still intermediate-level language learners as a way for them to get immediate feedback and practice their English without feeling too much pressure to 'get everything right' on an assignment. In terms of its use in math education (my subject), I haven't yet thought of any particularly compelling applications, but maybe someone will surprise me.'
'My entire department is nervous about the sudden easy access to AI writing tools, and we've already seen assignments from our students using it. For now, it's fairly easy to spot, but we're afraid that it's only a matter of a year or so before we'll be able to suss out the cheating. We don't have a plan and are eager to find one.'
'The only reason I haven't used ChatGPT is that I haven't had time. I plan on trying it for lesson planning, and I don't have any moral reservations about doing so. As far as my students go, I teach in a very underserved community, and the vast majority of my students don't have internet access at home (other than on their phones), so I'm not worried about the cheating aspect.'
'As far as cheating goes, it's silly to worry about it. Students can already pay a human to do this work (and be hard to detect). Also, ChatGPT is good at certain things but not at others. It can be a useful tool for talking about human judgment and what our ethical responsibilities are as 'authors' of documents.'
'I have several colleagues who have fed take-home exam questions to ChatGPT, and it has scored in the B-range, which is scary.'
'I think it's a remarkably effective tool at replicating human writing, but I'm not convinced it'll effectively come up with new ideas. I'm concerned about cheating risk, but it's my understanding that the owners can implement 'fingerprinting' methods to mitigate it. And, as always in education, I think students will still get out what they put in -- those who work harder will learn and achieve more, and those who cheat to get by will have to 'pay the piper,' either sooner or later.'
Conclusion
In the end, while educators at both the collegiate and grade school levels are concerned about the risk of students using ChatGPT to cheat, they believe that it should be used as a resource by students instead of banned altogether. Students, on the other hand, are far less trusting: 72% of college students believe that ChatGPT should be banned from their college's network, and over half of the students surveyed have had ChatGPT write an essay for them. While ChatGPT can be useful for generating things like writing prompts or assisting in outlines for students, the students themselves may be more likely to believe that something so helpful will end up as a crutch rather than a tool of learning.
Methodology
"Study.com surveyed over 100 educators and 1,000 students in January 2023, over the age of 18, on the use of ChatGPT in schools.
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