“Since its public release, ChatGPT has created considerable anxiety among teachers worried that students will use it to write their assignments,” study author Prof Ken Hyland, from the University of East Anglia’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning, said in a press release.
“The fear is that ChatGPT and other AI writing tools potentially facilitate cheating and may weaken core literacy and critical thinking skills. This is especially the case as we don’t yet have tools to reliably detect AI-created texts,” he added.
For the study, the researchers analyzed 145 essays written by real students and 145 written by ChatGPT. They focused on the way writers related to their readers by examining the frequency and types of engagement markers like questions and personal commentary.
Ultimately, the researchers found that writing from real students contained a 'rich array' of engagement markers such as rhetorical questions, personal asides, and direct appeals to the reader. At the same time, while ChatGPT essays were linguistically fluent, they were more impersonal. They mimicked academic writing conventions and lacked a ‘personal touch’ or the ability to present a clear stance.
This, noted Prof Hyland, reflects the nature of its training data and statistical learning methods which prioritize coherence over conversational nuance. The researchers noted that tools like ChatGPT should be used as teaching aids and not shortcuts.
“When students come to school, college or university, we’re not just teaching them how to write, we’re teaching them how to think - and that’s something no algorithm can replicate,” said Prof Hyland.
Sources: Science Daily, Written Communication
