How many college students use ChatGPT and other similar software to generate academic paper content? Faced with the challenge of detecting whether or not a writing has been prepared with artificial intelligence, and being able to guarantee a fair evaluation, we have carried out a study among our students (from the degree in Advertising and Public Relations) to find out how many and why they use of these tools.

In the quantitative part of the study, we conducted a survey in which a total of 300 students participated; We combine it with qualitative interviews conducted with the AI ​​tool AskMore. This AI tool generates personalized interviews taking into account the researcher’s own questions, marked at the beginning, and the answers that the interviewee provides during the conversation process.

Many use it often

The results of this study have revealed the high percentage of use of AI applications: four out of five students claim to have used this type of tools, and only one out of four states that their use is occasional.

Those who use them state that the tools are useful and the difficulty of using them is low, so they have a medium-high level of satisfaction with their use. It is observed that, in general, when positive values ​​such as the usefulness and satisfaction generated by the use of the tool increase, the difficulty expressed by its use decreases.

In general, students use these tools to search for information and document themselves, and they believe that their employment will increase in the teaching field, but they consider that their use should be controlled from the institution, expanding the perspective of previous studies , in which which proposes the creation of an Ethical Observatory for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Education.

Fast and easy

Regarding the motivations that lead students to use these tools, we find quick and easy access to information. One of its main advantages is to speed up the data collection processes and obtain concrete answers.

Regarding the drawbacks, and taking into account that there are students who do not observe disadvantages in the use of these tools, the interviewees affirm – consolidating the trend already shown in other studies – that the uncertainty of the origin of the data and the outdated information These are some of the reasons why they do not use these tools more regularly.

Finally, regarding the application of these software at the university, students believe that these tools can be complementary to the rest of the content for both teachers and students. Previous studies have found positive results in the teaching-learning process with the use of AI tools.

Respondents believe, however, that the way competencies are evaluated should be modified towards a more practical assessment that would avoid the use of these applications. They do not consider that its use should be prohibited, but rather that a fairer evaluation of the work carried out by the student should be found regardless of the applications used in its development.This work allows us to observe to what extent these tools have penetrated higher education students and their opinion on their use within the university context.

Author Bios: Noemí Martín García is Professor of Advertising and Media, Alberto Martin Garcia is Professor in the degree in Advertising and PR and Marian Núñez Cansado is Professor of audiovisual communication and advertising all at the University of Valladolid