Widespread AI misuse means higher ed must rethink assessment
Widespread AI misuse means higher ed must rethink assessment
Publish Date: 2026-05-21 14:00:00
Source Domain: news.cornell.edu
Large numbers of college students are now using artificial intelligence to complete – and cheat on – their assignments, suggesting that colleges and universities need to change how they are evaluating students, new Cornell research finds.
An analysis of survey responses from more than 95,000 students at 20 public research universities in the U.S. finds about one-third regularly used generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT or other models to produce text, video or code, when completing assignments, and 9% had used it to cheat.
“Assessment reform is necessary and urgent,” said study co-author Rene Kizilcec, associate professor of information science at the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and director of the Future of Learning Lab. “The fact that students are misusing GenAI is a problem for assessment validity, and that’s a problem for the credibility of university credentials.”
The new study, “Generative AI Use and Misuse Call for Assessment Reform in Higher Education,” published May 21 in the journal Science.
Kizilcec partnered with Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education and director of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium at the University of California, Berkeley, to investigate AI use and misuse among university students. Each year, SERU sends out surveys to undergraduates, asking students’ opinions on engagement, belonging, affordability and other topics.
The questions regarding GenAI usage, collected during the 2023-24 academic year, was the largest survey of its kind at the time, which enabled researchers to break down responses by discipline.
“We wanted to provide a more evidence-based approach to how students actually use AI, and, more importantly, misuse it,” Chirikov said. “Even this early stage evidence shows that we have a very serious challenge on our hands, and universities need to address that.”
Overall, 37% of students…
