AI usage higher among American students, finds Turnitin

American students are relying on AI to support their writing assignments far more than their Australian or British peers, according to data collected by Turnitin.

The company, used by universities worldwide to check text for evidence of cheating, found that US-based higher education students are “offloading” their writing to AI at double the rate of their overseas counterparts.

Analysis comparing student output assessed by the company’s detection tools found 19.4 per cent of those at US institutions hit the more than 80 per cent threshold for AI usage, versus 10.2 per cent in Australia and 9.8 per cent in the UK.

The Turnitin Learning Integrity Insights report also looked at dependence on the burgeoning technology across age groups, finding that American university students are using AI more than those at school.

About half of the assessed work in the US higher education system features “at least some” AI writing, according to Turnitin’s detection software – but less than a third of work submitted by school pupils (29.8 per cent) does.

The analysis also shows that students are most frequently turning to AI for assistance in the “drafting” stage of their assignments.

Some 43 per cent of students polled said this was the point at which they used the technology, with 18 per cent saying the same of proofreading and 11 per cent saying they enlisted it when they were “getting started” with a piece of work.

The most common AI requests were questions soliciting feedback – for example, “is my paper good?” or “how can I improve my paper?”

When it comes to how academics and teachers are approaching AI, the report suggests that professionals are “hungry for education-specific” applications that can help them design assessments and save time on everyday tasks. It suggests the technology cannot be applied “off the shelf” at universities and schools.

According to the findings, a large number of academics and teaching and learning leaders, rather than administrators or IT staff, are leading AI strategy and implementation at their institutions. Approximately half (48 per cent) of those polled said teaching and learning faculty members were leading on the technology’s use, with only 17 per cent saying the same of IT leadership.

“Every educator I talk to wants the same two things: they want to see how their students are actually using AI, and they want to decide for themselves when it belongs in an assignment and when it doesn't,” said Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at Turnitin.

“Our job is to give educators the visibility and the flexibility to make that call in their own classroom."

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com