The cheating fueled by AI – and how to prevent students from doing so – becomes a major concern for educators.
But to what extent is it widespread? The recently published data of a popular plagiarism detection company highlight the problem.
And it may not be as bad as educators think.
Out of more than 200 million Writing the assignments examined by Turnitin AI detection tool In the past year, use of AI has been detected in approximately 1 out of 10 assignments, while only 3 all over 100 assignments were generated mainly by AI.
These figures have not changed much compared to the moment when Turnitin published data in August 2023 in the first three months of the use of his detection tool, said the company director of the company, Annie Chechitelli.
“We have struck a state of equilibrium, and that has not changed spectacular since then,” she said. “There are students who rely too much on AI. But it is not omnipresent. It was not that, “the sky falls”. »»
The fact that the number of students using AI to complete their school work has not skyrocketed in the past year Stanford University survey results which was published in December. The researchers interviewed the students in 40 different secondary schools and found that the percentage of students who admitted to having cheated had remained flat since the advent of chatgpt and other generative AI tools easily available. For years before the release of Chatgpt, between 60 and 70 percent of students admitted having cheated, and that remained the same in the surveys in 2023, the researchers said.
Turnitin’s latest version of data shows that in 11% of assignments take place via its AI detection tool, at least 20% of each assignment had evidence of AI in writing. In 3% of assignments, each assignment was made up of 80% or more of the writing of AI, which follows closely The company only saw 3 months after launching its AI detection tool.
Experts warn against fixing cheating and plagiarism
However, a separate survey of educators found that AI detection tools are becoming more and more popular with teachers, a trend that worries certain experts.
THE College and secondary school survey By the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non -profit organization focused on technological policy and consumer rights, revealed that 68% used an AI detection tool, largely compared to the previous year . Teachers also reported in the same survey as students have more and more problems for using AI to complete homework. During the school year of 2023-24, 63% of teachers said that the students had been in trouble for being accused of having used a generative AI in their school work, against 48% last year.
Despite the rare evidence that AI feeds a wave in cheating, half of the teachers reported in the Center for Democracy and Technology survey that the generator made them more suspicious than their students turn to an original work.
Some experts warn that fixing plagiarism and cheating is poor orientation.
This creates an environment where students are afraid to speak with their teachers of AI tools because they could be in trouble, said Tara Nattrass, Director General of Innovation and Strategy at ISTE + ASCD, an organization without Lucrative goal that offers content and professional development on educational technology and curriculum.
“We have to reframe the conversation and engage with students in the way AI can support them in their learning and the way it can be detrimental to their learning,” she said in an email at education week. “We want students to know that activities such as using AI to write trials and transmit them because they are harmful to their learning while using AI to break difficult subjects to strengthen understanding can. help in their learning. “
Passing attention to teaching Literacy of AI, develops better policies
Students said in Stanford’s survey which is generally how they think that AI should be used: as a help to understand concepts rather than a fancy plagiarism tool.
Nattrass said schools should teach Itaph While including students in writing the Directives of Clear AI.
Nattrass also recommends against schools using AI detection tools. They are too unreliable to authenticate the work of students, she said, and false positives can be devastating for individual students and raise a wider mistrust environment. Some research has revealed that AI detection tools are particularly low to identify the original writing of learners in English of the prose led by AI.
“Students use AI and will continue to do so with or without advice from the educator,” said Nattrass. “Teaching students safe and ethical use of AI is part of our responsibility to help them contribute to digital citizens.”
The AI detection software actually uses AI to function: these tools are formed on large amounts of writing created by the machine and man so that the software can ideally recognize the differences between the two.
Turnitin claims that its AI detector is 99% precise to determine whether a document has been written with AI, in particular the Chatppt, as long as the document was composed with at least 20% of the writing of AA , according to the company’s website.
Chechitelli stressed that no detector or test – whether it is a fire alarm or a medical test – is 100%precise.
Although she said teachers should not only count on AI detectors to determine if a student uses AI to cheat, she proves that detection tools can provide teachers with precious data.
“This is not final evidence,” she said. “This is a signal that taken with other signals can be used to start a conversation with a student.”
While educators become more comfortable with a generative AI, Tchchitelli said that it predicts that attention will drop from transparency detection: how should students quote or communicate the ways they used AI? When should educators encourage students to use AI in homework? And do schools have clear policies concerning the use of AI and what exactly constitutes plagiarism or cheating?
“The comments we now hear from students are:” I will use it. I would love a little more advice on how and when I have no problems ”, but I still use it to learn, said Chechitelli.