Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating – and experts says these are tip of the iceberg
Thousands of university students in the UK have been caught misusing ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools in recent years, while traditional forms of plagiarism show a marked decline, a Guardian investigation can reveal.
A survey of academic integrity violations found almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating using AI tools in 2023-24, equivalent to 5.1 for every 1,000 students. That was up from 1.6 cases per 1,000 in 2022-23.
Figures up to May suggest that number will increase again this year to about 7.5 proven cases per 1,000 students – but recorded cases represent only the tip of the iceberg, according to experts.
The data highlights a rapidly evolving challenge for universities: trying to adapt assessment methods to the advent of technologies such as ChatGPT and other AI-powered writing tools.
Maybe we need a new way to approach school. I don’t think I agree with turning education into a competition where the difficulty is curved towards the most competitive creating a system that became so difficult that students need to edge each other out any way they can.
I guess what I don’t understand is what changed? Is everything homework now? When I was in school, even college, a significant percentage of learning was in class work, pop quizzes, and weekly closed book tests. How are these kids using LLMs so much for class if a large portion of the work is still in the classroom? Or is that just not the case anymore? It’s not like ChatGPT can handwrite an essay in pencil or give an in person presentation (yet).
University was always guided self-learning, at least in the UK. The lecturers are not teachers. The provide and explain material, but they’re not there to hand-hold you through it.
University education is very different to what goes on at younger ages. It has to be when a class is 300 rather than 30 people.
WTF? 300? There were barely 350 people in my graduating class of high school and that isn’t a small class for where I am from. The largest class size at my college was maybe 60. No wonder people use LLMs. Like, that’s just called an auditorium at that point, how could you even ask a question? Self-guided isn’t supposed to mean “solo”.
You can ask questions in auditorium classes.
The 300+ student courses typically were high volume courses like intro or freshman courses.
Second year cuts down significantly in class size, but also depends on the subject.
3rd and 4th year courses, in my experience, were 30-50 students
I am going to be honest; I don’t believe you. I genuinely don’t believe that in a class with more people than minutes in the session that a person could legitimately have time to interact with the professor.
The 60 person class I referred to was a required lecture portion freshman science class with a smaller lab portion. That we could ask questions in the lab was the only reason 60 people was okay in the lecture and even then the professor said he felt it was too many people.
That’s fine if you don’t, but you can ask questions.
They even have these clickers that allow the professor to ask “snap questions” with multiple choice answers so they can check understanding
I can’t believe people go into debt for that experience. I would be livid.
In the US we went common core. That means the school board decides the courses at the beginning of the year, and they set tests designed to ensure the students are learning. But there are two issues. 1. The students are not being taught. Teachers dont get paid enough to care nor provide learning materials, so they just have yhe students read the textbook and do homework until the test. This means students are not learning critical thinking or the material, they merely memorize this weeks material long enough to pass the test. 2. The tests are poorly designed. As I hinted at with point 1, the tests merely ensure that you have memorized this weeks material. They do not and are not designed to ensure that you actually learn.
These issues are by design, not by accident. Teachers pay rates have stagnated along with the rest of the working class, with the idea being to slowly give the working class less and less propetional buying power and therefore economic control. In addition, edicating your populace runs directly contradictory to what the current reigning faction wants. An educated populace is harder to lie to.
Depends on the course. Some are very assignment heavy and some have 2 in person test grades for the entire grade. As a rule, there’s more of the former than the latter.
I do agree we should go back to the 90s/00s way of just having weekly quizzes and tests in person though.
But like what if we just had schools present the work. Then the work force was reasonable for testing if a candidate’s knowledge was acceptable. This way the onus is on the student. If they don’t learn, that’s on them. Professors are there to give work and grade in the sense that they challenge students to be critical of their own work. Did they cite, are the arguments logical or poor. Did they meet or exceed expectations. If they cheated… I think I see the problem. Hmmm not sure I just think maybe school should be less a mill and more about the responsibility of the student and that the workforce is responsible for determining if someone has the skills. We’ve just really relied on education system for something it isn’t. It’s really a glorified daycare that business offloaded some responsibility on to
My dad had oral exams, we can go back to that
On his knees?
That was an other occasion, mom gave him a passing grade.
Nah.
Let the workers tear each other apart in an effort to serve.
I like seeing them suffer at this point because they all brought this on themselves.
You say they, not including yourself.
You’re a member of the rich ruling class, then?
It’s an interesting perspective that working class teenagers brought this on themselves.
They generally seem quite restricted in their agency and impact, indeed they are usually the most vocal and proactive age group for bringing about positive change, but the incumbent oppressive system of late stage capitalism (not any one individual, group or organisation, but the collected interests and power of the ruling class put through the lens of capitalism) resists that change with great strength.