“Students don’t want their peers to perceive that they are not capable of doing the work,” said Alex Kale, a computer scientist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study. studywhich was presented at a conference in Barcelona, Spain, in April. “They don’t want their peers to perceive them as dishonest… And it feels deeply personal.”
Kale calls this phenomenon “social desirability bias,” the human tendency to answer questions in a way that makes us look good to others (and ourselves), rather than being completely honest, even in an anonymous survey. In a separate online survey of 98 college students conducted by the researchers, respondents said that admitting to using AI was similar to admitting that you “can’t complete coursework independently” or that you’re “lazy.” Another respondent thought that students hid usage for fear of being discovered and possibly explained away.
The researchers offer an alternative explanation for the gap. Students may be overestimating how many of their peers use AI because it is a highly visible part of campus life. They hear people talk about ChatGPT. They see AI tools open on laptop screens. That may start to seem like the norm. One respondent put it this way: “I think only a small portion of students actually rely on LLMs for their coursework, while the majority of students do not. That small portion leads some students to assume that the majority are using them.” (The current generation of post-2022 AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are often called large language models or LLMs.)
In other words, students may be using AI more than they admit, while AI hype may also be creating the impression that everyone is using it.
This same phenomenon (a large gap between what students admit to doing and what they believe their peers do) is commonly found in public health research on alcohol, drugs and sex. Students often overestimate how much their peers binge drink, use drugs, or engage in casual sex. And that has had big implications for curbing unhealthy behaviors. When students believe that “everyone else is doing it,” they are more likely to participate in it too. The false perception becomes partly self-fulfilling.
More than 25 years ago, colleges began to worry that warning students about excessive drinking on campus was counterproductive and actually encouraged students to get drunk. Many changed strategydownplaying the problem of excessive alcohol consumption and publishing statistics that most students drink in moderation. According to some public health officials, the number of students who said they drank heavily decreased.
There may be some lessons here about encouraging responsible use of AI, although the University of Chicago study does not link AI use to drugs or alcohol. But it does raise the question that perceptions matter. If students believe that almost everyone relies on AI to complete coursework, they may feel pressured to use it themselves just to keep up.
Kristin Fasiang is a graduate student in computer science and learning sciences at Northwestern University. Fasiang reported and wrote this story along with Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report.
This story about Use of AI on university campuses was produced by The Hechinger Reportan independent, nonprofit news organization covering education. Enroll in Test points and others Hechinger Newsletters.
