Survey: Two-Thirds of Students Will Continue to Use AI, Even if Teachers and Schools Do Not Allow It

Plus, CBS Boston talks AI and cheating, with a quote you have to read. Plus, Inspera product demo, December 14.

Issue 260

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Survey: Share of Students Who Will Use AI in Spite of Ban Increases

In June, in Issue 221, we covered a survey done by Tyton Partners regarding views and uses of AI in education. A few days ago, a new, updated version was released. And like the first version, it has some interesting findings.

The most interesting finding to me is that in both surveys students were asked:

If your instructor or institution prohibits the use of generative AI writing tools, how likely are you to still use something like ChatGPT?

In June, 58% of surveyed students said they would keep on using AI despite it being disallowed. In the November survey, it’s 68%. That’s not good. Among students who use AI, 75% say they will keep doing so even if it’s not allowed.

Also troubling is that more than 30% of students report using generative AI for “summarizing or paraphrasing text”, “answering homework questions”, or “assisting with writing assignments.” That may be fine, although, the survey narrative says:

students are far exceeding the boundaries that faculty are setting. 2% of Faculty Non-users and 6% of Faculty AI users permit GenAI to be used by students for writing large parts of assignments, while 27% of AI-using students report leveraging AI for this writing use case; nearly half of all AI-using students are leveraging tools to write small parts of assignments despite 9% of non-using faculty and 21% of AI-using faculty permitting it.

Far exceeding boundaries.

And to paraphrase, more than a quarter of students (27%) who use AI say they are using it for “writing large parts of assignments.” Half are using AI to “write small parts of assignments.”

To repeat - that’s a problem.

I will also share that, according to the updated survey, while a plurality of students (47%) still think that AI will have “a positive impact on my learning,” the number is down slightly. At the same time, the portion of students who say AI will negatively impact their learning has risen from June to November — from 22% to 26%.

Maybe students are learning what they’re supposed to say about AI. Or maybe they’re learning it’s not really so helpful, though that does not comport with the increase of those who say they will keep using it.

I don’t know if another update is in the pipeline. I hope so. These findings are valuable.

And if I may presume, next time, I’d love for Tyton to ask about disallowing AI use and also ask whether enforcement of a prohibition — that is to say students being caught — makes a difference in planned future use. I bet it does.

Either way, if it was not obvious already, AI use for disallowed purposes is real, and it’s likely to continue.

CBS in Boston Checks in on AI, Cheating

The CBS affiliate in Boston ran a segment this week on AI use and misuse in college. There’s text and video.

The video is fun, but here I’ll focus on the text.

The story repeats a finding about AI usage:

A recent survey by BestColleges revealed that 56% of college students admit completing assignments using AI technology.

To which, the station adds:

In fact, when WBZ-TV surveyed random students at Boston University and Northeastern, many said they, too, use it for schoolwork. 

No surprise.

It continues:

"I've been using ChatGPT for most of my assignments and it works really well," a BU student said.

But the absolute kicker, and the bit you should focus on, is this, from Tilman Wolf, the Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at University of Massachusetts, Amherst:

We have seen that our library has received more requests for interlibrary loans, for books or journals that don't even exist because somebody looks at a reference that was generated by a generative AI model that has, you know, journals and books in there that don't exist

OMG.

Please tell me again how generative AI is like using a calculator. Please.

Inspera Product Demo, December 14

Inspera is offering a demo of its AI and plagiarism detection products on Thursday, December 14 at 11:00am Central.

Details and sign up are here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfAi5py-r3LEfrn4IVCsEVvs1oUb7GottViAkbwaI6fSq5Wbg/viewform

Speaking of - if you have a demo to announce or academic integrity news to share, let me know. If you reply to “The Cheat Sheet,” it reaches me.