High-achieving students fear AI is eroding academic edge

Detailed summary

Top students fear AI is eroding their competitive edge, as a former education standards boss warns an integrity crisis in ... Read More The post High-achieving students fear AI is…

Take-home assignments are increasingly being influenced by AI. Pic: Getty Images

High-achieving students fear AI is undermining their ability to stand out, while more than half of teachers and school leaders support a temporary freeze on take-home assessments, a survey shows.

Amid a spike in students caught cheating using AI in exams and concerns about declining scores, education ministers last week announced that students would be blocked from using generative AI in class and assessments under a wider clampdown on screens at school.

Former chair of the NSW schools standards authority Tom Alegounarias said AI had “punctured the faith” that teachers were collecting gradual evidence of a child’s learning throughout their schooling.

“Take-home activities have always been vulnerable to outside influence, particularly large creative projects. They have always had a bias towards privileged ­middle class kids,” he said.

Former chair of the NSW Education Standards Authority Tom Alegounarias says take-home tasks have always been subject to compromising but AI has made the situation acute. Pic as appeared in The Australian

At-home assessments were originally designed to take pressure off exams, Alegounarias said, but instead had had the opposite effect, and were forcing a return to in-person tests to protect year 12 credentials.

Take-home tasks had always risked being compromised but “AI has made the situation acute,” he said.

A survey by online testing platform Gradeo found 61% of high-achievers believed AI was eroding their competitive edge; 91% of teachers said detection was no longer enough and assessment should be redesigned.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Stockhead. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.