Student Use, Performance and Perceptions of ChatGPT on College Writing Assignments

ChatGPT is a generative chatbot that conversationally responds to prompts using content mined from the internet. In a very short time, ChatGPT has disrupted many industries, including education. However, the risks and dangers of this technology remain to be seen; for example, students can use ChatGPT dishonestly on writing assignments. Education currently lacks a clear understanding of students’ perspectives and intentions around this technology. In this study, undergraduate students from a comprehensive university were briefed on ChatGPT, given guidelines for its use, encouraged to use this tool on their written assignments and surveyed for their opinions on ChatGPT. We found that a small number of students chose to use ChatGPT and there was no grade difference between students using and not using this tool. Additionally, thematic analysis of student survey responses revealed that while some students viewed ChatGPT as an idea generator and improvement tool for written assignments, others saw it as a way to create submissions for class assignments, potentially infringing on academic integrity. The majority of students felt that ChatGPT should be allowed in college classes and intend to use ChatGPT on future assignments. Finally, most students share misconceptions about ChatGPT, including that it is a source of information and a search engine. Given the rapid rates of adoption of this technology, and its enormous potential for integration across sectors, it is incumbent on educators to deliberately guide and train our students with this tool, while keeping our students’ perspectives and intentions in mind.