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1 Nigerian Students Turn to aI For Tests Answers, Lecturers Raise Alarm

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reinventing education while making discovering more available however also stimulating disputes on its impact.

While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for enhancing their knowing experience, speakers are raising concerns about the growing dependence on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens academic stability, specifically with numerous trainees not able to safeguard their projects or provided works.

Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, archmageriseswiki.com a speaker at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed disappointment over the growing reliance on AI-generated actions amongst students recounting a current experience he had.

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"I offered an assignment to my MBA students, and out of over 100 students, about 40% submitted the precise very same answers. These students did not even know each other, but they all used the exact same AI tool to generate their responses," he stated.

He kept in mind that this pattern is widespread amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees however is especially concerning in part-time and range knowing programs.

"AI is a major challenge when it comes to assignments. Many students no longer believe critically-they simply go on the internet, create answers, and submit," he included.

Surprisingly, some speakers are likewise implicated of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both educators and students turn to AI for benefit instead of intellectual rigor.

This dispute raises critical questions about the function of AI in scholastic stability and student advancement.

According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million regular monthly active users in January 2023, accc.rcec.sinica.edu.tw only one country had actually launched guidelines on generative AI since July 2023.

As of December 2024, ChatGPT had over 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot each week and 1 billion messages sent every day all over the world.

Decline of scholastic rigor

University lecturers are progressively worried about trainees submitting AI-generated tasks without really understanding the content.

Dr. Felix Echekoba, a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his issues to Nairametrics about students progressively counting on ChatGPT, only to battle with responding to standard concerns when tested.

"Many trainees copy from ChatGPT and send sleek assignments, but when asked fundamental concerns, they go blank. It's frustrating since education has to do with learning, not just passing courses," he stated.

- Prof. Nwaogwugwu mentioned that the increasing variety of superior graduates can not be entirely attributed to AI however admitted that even high-performing trainees use these tools.
"A first-class trainee is a first-class trainee, AI or not, however that does not suggest they do not cheat. The benefits of AI might be peripheral, but it is making students reliant and less analytical," he stated.

- Another speaker, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a different concern that some speakers themselves are guilty of the exact same practice.
"It's not just students using AI lazily. Some speakers, out of their own laziness, create lesson notes, course describes, marking schemes, and even test questions with AI without evaluating them. Students in turn utilize AI to generate responses. It's a cycle of laziness and it is eliminating real learning," he lamented.

Students' point of views on usage

Students, on the other hand, state AI has improved their knowing experience by making academic materials more easy to understand and available.

- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration student at Unilag, shared how AI has actually considerably assisted her learning by breaking down complex terms and offering summaries of prolonged texts.
"AI assisted me understand things more easily, specifically when dealing with complex subjects," she explained.

However, she recalled a circumstances when she used AI to submit her job, just for her lecturer to immediately recognize that it was produced by ChatGPT and decline it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad impact.

- Bryan Okwuba, who just recently finished with a top-notch degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, strongly thinks that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He attributes his exceptional grades to actively appealing by asking concerns and concentrating on areas that speakers stress in class, as they are typically reflected in examination questions.
"It's all about existing, taking note, and tapping into the wealth of knowledge shared by my associates," he stated,

- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, confesses to occasionally copying straight from ChatGPT when facing numerous deadlines.
"To be truthful, there are times I copy straight from ChatGPT when I have multiple due dates, and I know I'm guilty of that, the majority of times the speakers don't get to go through them, but AI has actually also assisted me discover much faster."

Balancing AI's role in education

Experts think the option depends on AI literacy