Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing education while making finding out more available however also triggering arguments on its impact.
While trainees hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their learning experience, lecturers are raising concerns about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and undermines scholastic integrity, particularly with many trainees unable to protect their tasks or given works.
Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed aggravation over the growing reliance on AI-generated actions among trainees recounting a current experience he had.
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"I gave an assignment to my MBA students, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% sent the precise very same responses. These trainees did not even understand each other, but they all utilized the exact same AI tool to generate their actions," he stated.
He noted that this trend is widespread amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate students but is particularly concerning in part-time and distance knowing programs.
"AI is a severe obstacle when it comes to assignments. Many students no longer believe critically-they just browse the web, produce answers, and submit," he added.
Surprisingly, some speakers are likewise accused of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both educators and passfun.awardspace.us students turn to AI for benefit rather than intellectual rigor.
This debate raises crucial questions about the function of AI in academic integrity and student development.
According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million month-to-month active users in January 2023, just one country had launched policies on generative AI as of July 2023.
As of December 2024, ChatGPT had more than 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot weekly and chessdatabase.science 1 billion messages sent out every day around the world.
Decline of scholastic rigor
University lecturers are progressively concerned about students sending AI-generated assignments without really understanding the material.
Dr. Felix Echekoba, a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, forum.altaycoins.com expressed his issues to Nairametrics about trainees increasingly depending on ChatGPT, just to fight with responding to fundamental questions when tested.
"Many students copy from ChatGPT and send sleek assignments, but when asked basic questions, they go blank. It's disappointing due to the fact that education has to do with finding out, not simply passing courses," he stated.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu pointed out that the increasing variety of first-rate graduates can not be completely associated to AI but admitted that even high-performing trainees use these tools.
"A top-notch student is a top-notch trainee, AI or not, however that does not indicate they do not cheat. The benefits of AI might be peripheral, but it is making students dependent and less analytical," he said.
- Another lecturer, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different issue that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the exact same practice.
"It's not just trainees utilizing AI slackly. Some speakers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course lays out, marking schemes, and even examination concerns with AI without reviewing them. Students in turn use AI to produce answers. It's a cycle of laziness and it is eliminating genuine knowing," he lamented.
Students' viewpoints on usage
Students, on the other hand, state AI has actually enhanced their knowing experience by making scholastic materials more easy to understand and accessible.
- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration student at Unilag, shared how AI has actually considerably aided her learning by breaking down complex terms and supplying summaries of prolonged texts.
"AI helped me comprehend things more easily, particularly when handling intricate topics," she discussed.
However, she remembered an instance when she used AI to submit her task, only for her speaker to right away recognize that it was created by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola kept in mind that it was a good-bad result.
- Bryan Okwuba, who recently graduated with a superior degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, strongly thinks that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He associates his exceptional grades to actively interesting by asking concerns and concentrating on areas that speakers emphasize in class, as they are often shown in test questions.
"It's all about being present, paying attention, and using the wealth of understanding shared by my associates," he said,
- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, admits to occasionally copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with several deadlines.
"To be honest, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have multiple due dates, and I know I'm guilty of that, many times the speakers do not get to check out them, however AI has actually likewise assisted me find out faster."
Balancing AI's function in education
Experts think the service lies in AI literacy; teaching trainees and speakers how to utilize AI as a learning help rather than a faster way.
- Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the integration of AI into Nigeria's education system, worrying the importance of a well balanced method that preserves human participation while utilizing AI to enhance discovering results.
"As we browse the quickly progressing landscape of Expert system (AI), it is vital that we prioritise human agency in education. We must guarantee that AI boosts, rather than replaces, educators' crucial role in forming young minds," he said
Concerns over AI in Learning
Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity improvement expert, resolved growing concerns regarding making use of synthetic intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their prospective dangers to the instructional system.
- She acknowledged the advantages of AI, nevertheless, stressed the requirement for caution in its use.
- Akintade highlighted the increasing hesitance among educators and bphomesteading.com schools towards incorporating AI tools in finding out environments. She identified two primary reasons why AI tools are dissuaded in educational settings: security threats and plagiarism. She discussed that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to respond based on user interactions, which might not line up with the expectations of teachers.
"It is not looking at it as a tutor," Akintade said, discussing that AI does not accommodate specific mentor approaches.
Plagiarism is another issue, as AI pulls from existing information, typically without appropriate attribution
"A lot of individuals need to understand, like I stated, this is data that has been trained on. It is not just bringing things out from the sky. It's bringing details that some other people are fed into it, which in essence suggests that is another individual's documents," she cautioned.
- Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early problem in AI development understood as "hallucination," where AI tools would produce information that was not accurate.
"Hallucination indicated that it was bringing out details from the air. If ChatGPT could not get that details from you, it was going to make one up," she explained.
She advised "grounding" AI by providing it with specific details to avoid such errors.
Navigating AI in Education
Akintade argued that prohibiting AI tools outright is not the solution, especially when AI presents a chance to leapfrog conventional instructional methods.
- She believes that regularly strengthening essential information helps individuals remember and wiki.monnaie-libre.fr prevent making errors when confronted with challenges.
"Immersion brings conversion. When you tell individuals the same thing over and over again, when they will make the errors, then they'll remember."
She also empasized the requirement for clear policies and treatments within schools, keeping in mind that lots of schools should attend to the individuals and process aspects of this usage.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu has resorted to in-class tasks and tests to counter AI-driven scholastic dishonesty.
"Now, I primarily use assignments to guarantee students supply original work." However, he acknowledged that managing large classes makes this technique challenging.
"If you set intricate questions, students will not have the ability to utilize AI to get direct answers," he discussed.
He highlighted the requirement for universities to train lecturers on crafting examination questions that AI can not quickly fix while acknowledging that some speakers struggle to counter AI misuse due to a lack 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 calls for the regulation of AI in education, recommending organizations to examine algorithms, data, and outputs of generative AI tools to ensure they fulfill ethical standards, secure user information, and filter unsuitable content.
- It stresses the need to evaluate the long-term effect of AI on critical abilities like thinking and imagination while developing policies that line up with ethical structures. Additionally, UNESCO suggests carrying out age restrictions for GenAI usage to secure more youthful trainees and secure vulnerable groups.
- For governments, it recommended adopting a collaborated national approach to controling GenAI, consisting of establishing oversight bodies and aligning guidelines with existing data defense and personal privacy laws. It emphasizes examining AI risks, imposing stricter guidelines for library.kemu.ac.ke high-risk applications, and ensuring national information ownership.