Schools are being warned about potential academic integrity issues stemming from the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT. A think tank has said that the proliferation of AI tools presents a “significant threat” to formal assessments in the UK and abroad.
ChatGPT is a form of generative AI with the ability to understand and respond to questions, as well as compose essays if asked – raising concerns that it can be used by students to complete assignments. As a result, determining whether the work presented by a student was actually produced by them has become “virtually impossible”.
So as to protect the existing method of assessing students’ knowledge, UK’s major exam boards have suggested that schools should make pupils do some of their coursework “in class under direct supervision”.
The think tank EDSK has also released a report recommending that students taking classroom-based courses must take one additional subject in Year 12 (equivalent to an AS level) that examines students via oral assessment, as well as making the extended project qualification (EPQ) compulsory for pupils to develop their study and writing skills.
In commenting on the issue, Tom Richmond, director of EDSK and a former ministerial adviser at the Department for Education (DfE), said: “Replacing written exams with coursework and other forms of ‘teacher assessment’ would almost certainly deliver grades that are less accurate and trustworthy while also increasing teachers’ workload. Consequently, the advent of ChatGPT has fatally undermined the case for expanding the use of coursework.”
Additionally, Ofqual’s chief regulator, Jo Saxton, has said that AI advancement has now made it “more important than ever” to uphold the traditional exam conditions.
With this in view, Geoff Barton, general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), has voiced his concern on the current overloaded exam-based system. He noted that there is a need for a “blended mix of academic and vocational options” and contended that AI should be “used as a tool to aid learning rather than something to be feared as a means of cheating.”
Finally, the Department for Education has come out to say that “exams are the best and fairest form of assessment”, and that there are “strict rules in place set by exam boards to ensure pupils’ work is their own.”
The think tank EDSK is an education body and think tank. Formed in 2019 by senior policy makers, it seeks to bring evidence and knowledge to bear on the biggest challenges facing British education system. The think tank is aware of the challenges posed by AI, and is looking to reignite debate in the UK about the fairness and effectiveness of assessment methods.
Tom Richmond is the director of the think tank EDSK and a former ministerial adviser at the Department for Education (DfE). He has been a strong advocate for improving the assessment process, seeing first-hand how the current system can fail to give accurate, trustworthy scores to students.
