Fears of mass cheating were sparked across the U.S. last December when students began using an A.I. chatbot called ChatGPT for writing assignments. Some districts blocked the chatbot on school-issued laptops and Wi-Fi. However, Stanford University research found no increase in overall cheating rates. A Pew Research Center survey found that about a third of teens had heard nothing at all about ChatGPT, and only a small minority had used it for schoolwork. While 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on tests and 58 percent admitted to plagiarizing between 2002 and 2015, cheating rates haven’t increased since ChatGPT was introduced in 2022. About 12 to 28 percent of students at four high schools said they had used an A.I. tool on a school test, assignment, or homework. Cheating is still a concern, but research suggests that discussions about chatbots in schools should focus on helping students understand and think critically about A.I. tools. A Pew survey found that only 20 percent of teens thought it was acceptable to use ChatGPT to write essays. Cheating used to be widespread among high school seniors, but after an AP history teacher allowed students to use chatbots for research projects, the culture transformed.
