Discovering how students use generative artificial intelligence tools for academic writing purposes

The aim of this project was to identify ways in which students are using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) technologies for the planning and researching stage of essay style assignments. The study recruited 30 students from various subject areas and levels of study and with different self-reported levels of confidence in using GAI tools. Each student was given three essay questions to choose from and 50 minutes to research their topic, make notes from sources, and put together an essay plan, using GAI tools if they deemed them useful. Their screens were recorded to facilitate a natural planning process and they were encouraged to narrate to provide insight into their reasoning. Of the 30 participants, 21 (70%) used GAI technologies within their process. ChatGPT 3.5 (Open AI) was the most frequently chosen, with 18 students (60%) using this. The most popular use of GAI was asking for definitions, explanations, or examples; or creating an essay plan or structure. The study also provided insight into students’ searching process, revealing that Google was the most popular starting point (chosen by 30% of students). Journal articles were the most popular source type (used by 80% of participants), and skim reading a section of a source was the most common method used to decide if it was relevant, with 63.3% of students doing this. When examining referencing behaviour, 80% of the students included some form of references in their essay plan, but none of the students created references for any GAI tools they had used.