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By: Tanja Bosch and Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam
Featured articles https://allafrica.com/stories/202311200005.html

South African University Students Use AI to

Help Them Understand - Not to Avoid Work

When ChatGPT was released in The results suggest that the of this specific tool. We explored
November 2022, it sparked many moral panics around the use of broad uses of AI-powered
conversations and moral panics. generative AI are unwarranted. technologies to get a sense of how
These centre on the impact of Students are not hyper-focused on students use these tools, which
generative artificial intelligence ChatGPT. We found that students tools they use, and where ChatGPT
(AI) on the information often use generative AI tools fits into these practices.
environment. People worry that AI for engaged learning and that
chatbots can negatively affect the they have a critical and nuanced These were the key findings:
integrity of creative and academic understanding of these tools.
work, especially since they can - 41% of respondents indicated
produce human-like texts and What could be of greater concern that they primarily used a laptop
images. from a teaching and learning for their academic work, followed
perspective is that, second to using by a smartphone (29.8%). Only
ChatGPT is a generative AI AI-powered tools for clarifying 10.5% used a desktop computer
model using machine learning. concepts, students are using them and 6.6% used a tablet.
It creates human-like responses, to generate ideas for assignments
having been trained to recognise or essays or when they feel stuck - Students tended to use a range
patterns in data. While it appears on a specific topic. of other AI-powered tools over
the model is engaging in natural ChatGPT, including translation and
conversation, it references a vast referencing tools. With reference
amount of data and extracts Unpacking the data to the use of online writing
features and patterns to generate assistants such as Quillbot,
coherent replies. The survey was completed by 1,471 46.5% of respondents indicated
students. Most spoke English as that they used such tools to
Higher education is one sector in their home language, followed by improve their writing style for
which the rise of AI like ChatGPT isiXhosa and isiZulu. The majority an assignment. 80.5% indicated
has sparked concerns. Some were first-year students. Most that they had used Grammarly or
of these relate to ethics and respondents were registered in similar tools to help them write in
integrity in teaching, learning and Humanities, followed by Science, appropriate English.
knowledge production. Education and Commerce. While
the survey is thus skewed towards - Fewer than half of survey
We’re a group of academics first-year Humanities students, it respondents (37.3%) said that
in the field of media and provides useful indicative findings they had used ChatGPT to answer
communication, teaching in South as educators explore new terrain. an essay question.
African universities. We wanted
to understand how university We asked students whether they
students were using generative had used individual AI tools, listing - Students acknowledged that
AI and AI-powered tools in some of the most popular tools AI-powered tools could lead to
their academic practices. We across several categories. Our plagiarism or affect their learning.
administered an online survey to survey did not explore lecturers’ However, they also stated that
undergraduate students at five attitudes or policies towards AI they did not use these tools in
South African universities: the tools. This will be probed in the problematic ways.
University of Cape Town, Cape next phase of our study, which
Peninsula University of Technology, will comprise focus groups with
Stellenbosch University, Rhodes students and interviews with - Respondents were
University, and the University of lecturers. Our study was not on overwhelmingly positive about
the Witwatersrand. ChatGPT specifically, though we the potential of digital and AI
did ask students about their use tools to make it easier for them

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