ChatGPT: The End of Online Exam Integrity?

TL;DR

This paper assesses ChatGPT's ability to perform high-level cognitive tasks and produce human-like text, highlighting its potential to undermine online exam integrity and discussing possible mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It provides an evaluation of ChatGPT's capabilities in academic contexts and discusses implications for online exam integrity and potential countermeasures.

Findings

ChatGPT can perform critical thinking and generate realistic text.

It poses a significant threat to online exam integrity.

Proposed solutions include invigilated exams and advanced detection methods.

Abstract

This study evaluated the ability of ChatGPT, a recently developed artificial intelligence (AI) agent, to perform high-level cognitive tasks and produce text that is indistinguishable from human-generated text. This capacity raises concerns about the potential use of ChatGPT as a tool for academic misconduct in online exams. The study found that ChatGPT is capable of exhibiting critical thinking skills and generating highly realistic text with minimal input, making it a potential threat to the integrity of online exams, particularly in tertiary education settings where such exams are becoming more prevalent. Returning to invigilated and oral exams could form part of the solution, while using advanced proctoring techniques and AI-text output detectors may be effective in addressing this issue, they are not likely to be foolproof solutions. Further research is needed to fully understand the implications of large language models like ChatGPT and to devise strategies for combating the risk of cheating using these tools. It is crucial for educators and institutions to be aware of the possibility of ChatGPT being used for cheating and to investigate measures to address it in order to maintain the fairness and validity of online exams for all students.