In a world where AI can generate research papers, solve equations or create art, educators worry about how college students may be using it, misusing it or missing out on it. Yet there have been few comprehensive studies of college students and their AI use.
Now, Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, has published the largest study of generative AI use by undergraduates, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Technology Sydney and Cornell University. More than 95,000 students at 20 research-intensive public universities responded to questions about how they use AI, including whether they use it to cheat. The findings were published on May 21 in Science.
Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education.Bora Reed/UC Berkeley
“The arrival of artificial intelligence technologies and GenAI tools like ChatGPT was a big shock to higher education and to faculty, to students — to everybody involved,” Chirikov said. “We didn’t know much about how students were using it and misusing it.”
The study, conducted in the spring of 2024, used data collected by Berkeley’s Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium, a group of research universities that collaborate on surveying students to improve higher education. About two-thirds of respondents said they used GenAI, and almost 40% used it monthly or even more frequently. What’s more, at least 9% of students who used AI reported using it to cheat. That number varied significantly by academic discipline, with more non-STEM students cheating with AI than STEM students. But the researchers caution that banning GenAI won’t stop cheating and may even harm students when they look for work in industries that expect AI proficiency.
