Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm
Expert System (AI) is changing education while making discovering more available but also triggering arguments on its impact.
While trainees hail AI tools like ChatGPT for boosting their learning experience, speakers are raising issues about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and undermines scholastic integrity, specifically with many trainees not able to defend their tasks or provided works.
Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a speaker at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed frustration over the growing reliance on AI-generated reactions among students stating a current experience he had.
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"I provided a task to my MBA students, and out of over 100 students, about 40% submitted the specific very same responses. These trainees did not even understand each other, but they all utilized the very same AI tool to create their responses," he said.
He kept in mind that this pattern prevails amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees however is especially worrying in part-time and range learning programs.
"AI is a major difficulty when it pertains to projects. Many trainees no longer believe critically-they just browse the web, create answers, and submit," he included.
Surprisingly, some speakers are also accused of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both teachers and students turn to AI for benefit instead of intellectual rigor.
This debate raises crucial questions about the role of AI in academic integrity and student development.
According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million regular monthly active users in January 2023, just one nation had launched policies on generative AI since July 2023.
As of December 2024, ChatGPT had over 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot each week and 1 billion messages sent every day worldwide.
Decline of scholastic rigor
University lecturers are significantly worried about students submitting AI-generated tasks without really comprehending the material.
Dr. Felix Echekoba, a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his concerns to Nairametrics about trainees increasingly counting on ChatGPT, only to battle with addressing fundamental concerns when evaluated.
"Many trainees copy from ChatGPT and send sleek projects, however when asked fundamental concerns, they go blank. It's frustrating because education has to do with finding out, not just passing courses," he said.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu pointed out that the increasing number of first-class graduates can not be completely attributed to AI but confessed that even high-performing trainees use these tools.
"A superior student is a top-notch trainee, AI or not, but that doesn't suggest they do not cheat. The advantages of AI may be peripheral, but it is making trainees dependent and less analytical," he said.
- Another lecturer, Dr. Ereke, dokuwiki.stream from Ebonyi State University, raised a different issue that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
"It's not just students utilizing AI slackly. Some speakers, out of their own laziness, create lesson notes, course details, marking schemes, and even test questions with AI without reviewing them. Students in turn utilize AI to create answers. It's a cycle of laziness and it is killing real learning," he lamented.
Students' viewpoints on usage
Students, on the other hand, say AI has enhanced their learning experience by making scholastic materials more easy to understand and photorum.eclat-mauve.fr accessible.
- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration student at Unilag, shared how AI has actually considerably aided her knowing by breaking down complex terms and supplying summaries of prolonged texts.
"AI helped me understand things more quickly, specifically when dealing with complicated topics," she discussed.
However, she recalled a circumstances when she used AI to submit her task, just for her lecturer to immediately recognize that it was produced by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad result.
- Bryan Okwuba, who recently graduated with a first-rate degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, securely believes that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He attributes his exceptional grades to actively appealing by asking questions and concentrating on locations that speakers highlight in class, as they are frequently reflected in exam questions.
"It's all about being present, focusing, and using the wealth of understanding shared by my associates," he said,
- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing student at UNIZIK, confesses to periodically copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with multiple due dates.
"To be sincere, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have multiple due dates, and I understand I'm guilty of that, a lot of times the lecturers don't get to review them, however AI has actually also assisted me learn quicker."
Balancing AI's function in education
Experts think the service depends on AI literacy; mentor students and speakers how to use AI as a learning aid instead of a faster way.
- Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the integration of AI into Nigeria's education system, worrying the importance of a balanced method that maintains human involvement while harnessing AI to enhance discovering outcomes.
"As we navigate the quickly developing landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is vital that we prioritise human company in education. We should guarantee that AI boosts, rather than changes, educators' essential function in forming young minds," he stated
Concerns over AI in Learning
Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity transformation expert, addressed growing concerns relating to the usage of expert system (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential risks to the academic system.
- She acknowledged the benefits of AI, utahsyardsale.com however, highlighted the need for caution in its usage.
- Akintade highlighted the increasing resistance amongst teachers and schools toward incorporating AI tools in finding out environments. She identified 2 primary reasons that AI tools are prevented in instructional settings: security dangers and plagiarism. She described that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to respond based upon user interactions, which might not align with the expectations of educators.
"It is not looking at it as a tutor," Akintade said, explaining that AI does not deal with specific mentor methods.
Plagiarism is another problem, as AI pulls from existing information, typically without appropriate attribution
"A lot of individuals need to understand, like I said, this is information that has been trained on. It is not simply bringing things out from the sky. It's bringing details that some other individuals are fed into it, which in essence suggests that is another person's documents," she warned.
- Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early concern in AI advancement referred to as "hallucination," where AI tools would create details that was not accurate.
"Hallucination suggested that it was bringing out details from the air. If ChatGPT might not get that details from you, it was going to make one up," she described.
She suggested "grounding" AI by supplying it with particular info to prevent such errors.
Navigating AI in Education
Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the solution, especially when AI presents an opportunity to leapfrog traditional instructional techniques.
- She thinks that regularly strengthening crucial info helps individuals remember and prevent making mistakes when faced with difficulties.
"Immersion brings conversion. When you tell people the same thing over and over once again, when they will make the mistakes, then they'll remember."
She likewise empasized the need for clear policies and procedures within schools, keeping in mind that lots of schools need to resolve the individuals and process elements of this use.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu has actually turned to in-class assignments and tests to counter AI-driven scholastic dishonesty.
"Now, I mainly use assignments to make sure students offer initial work." However, he acknowledged that handling large classes makes this method tough.
"If you set complex concerns, students will not have the ability to use AI to get direct answers," he described.
He highlighted the requirement for universities to train speakers on crafting exam concerns that AI can not quickly fix while acknowledging that some speakers battle to counter AI abuse due to an absence of technological awareness. "Some lecturers are analogue," he stated.
- Nigeria launched a draft National AI Strategy in August 2024, concentrating on ethical AI development with fairness, openness, responsibility, and personal privacy at its core.
- UNESCO in a report requires the guideline of AI in education, advising institutions to investigate algorithms, information, and outputs of generative AI tools to ensure they fulfill ethical requirements, safeguard user data, wavedream.wiki and trademarketclassifieds.com filter unsuitable content.
- It worries the need to the long-lasting effect of AI on critical skills like thinking and imagination while producing policies that line up with ethical structures. Additionally, videochatforum.ro UNESCO advises executing age restrictions for GenAI usage to protect more youthful students and secure vulnerable groups.
- For governments, it advised adopting a coordinated nationwide technique to regulating GenAI, consisting of developing oversight bodies and lining up regulations with existing information security and privacy laws. It stresses evaluating AI threats, enforcing more stringent guidelines for high-risk applications, and making sure nationwide data ownership.