df8i-2026-01-23_08_33_53-student-perceptions-of-chatgpt-use-in-a-college-essay-assignment-implications-for-learning-grading-and-trust-in-artificial-intelligence.pdf
df8i-2026-01-23_08_33_53-student-perceptions-of-chatgpt-use-in-a-college-essay-assignment-implications-for-learning-grading-and-trust-in-artificial-intelligence.pdf
Student Perceptions of ChatGPT Use in a College Essay Assignment: Implications for Learning, Grading, and Trust in Artificial Intelligence
Abstract-This article examined student experiences before and after an essay writing assignment that required the use of ChatGPT within an undergraduate engineering course. Utilizing a pre-post study design, we gathered data from twenty-four participants to evaluate ChatGPT's support for both completing and grading an essay assignment, exploring its educational value and impact on the learning process. Our quantitative and thematic analyses uncovered that ChatGPT did not simplify the writing process. Instead, the tool transformed the student learning experience yielding mixed responses. Participants reported finding ChatGPT valuable for learning, and their comfort with its ethical and benevolent aspects increased postuse. Concerns with ChatGPT included poor accuracy and limited feedback on the confidence of its output. Students preferred instructors to use ChatGPT to help grade their assignments, with appropriate oversight. They did not trust ChatGPT to grade by itself. Student views of ChatGPT evolved from a perceived "cheating tool" to a collaborative resource that requires human oversight and calibrated trust. Implications for writing, education, and trust in artificial intelligence are discussed.
One. INTRODUCTION
One. INTRODUCTION
Generative artificial intelligence tools are penetrating society at an incredible rate and have produced significant disruption, particularly with the release of ChatGPT. Writing as a uniquely human activity appears to be under threat with the onset of tools that can generate movie scripts, news articles, and journal manuscripts. In education, the launch of ChatGPT has resulted in mixed feelings among educators, popular media, and researchers with some declaring the college essay now dead or banning the use of
ChatGPT. As reported by Sullivan et al., roughly thirty-three percent of one thousand students surveyed used ChatGPT for their writing and, out of those students, seventy-five percent acknowledged it as cheating. Others are more optimistic that the use of AI will change education and essay writing for the better. ChatGPT can provide students with immediate and personalized feedback, flexible learning, and accessibility. These technologies also have the potential to make completing mundane tasks more efficient, including grading, answering common student queries, virtual tutoring, and developing course plans and materials. While these groups acknowledge the potential benefits, they also underscore ethical concerns, challenges to traditional assessment methods, and questions regarding the readiness of AI for higher education.
Although educators, researchers, and popular media have mixed feelings about AI-based technologies in education, it is less clear what students think. In early twenty twenty-three, a survey of over one thousand undergraduate and graduate students revealed one in five students had used ChatGPT on their assignments and essays. Elsewhere, over fifty percent of students reported that they were tempted to cheat using ChatGPT. Engineering students found it helpful in a design project for a college engineering course and believe that large language models that power applications, such as ChatGPT, can change education for the better. Beyond these few studies, it appears that, while there is an explosion of publications on large language models, there are still very few studies on student perceptions of these technologies.
To address this gap, the current study provides an empirical analysis of student perceptions of ChatGPT use in a college essay in an undergraduate human factors engineering course. The assignment deliberately mandated the use of ChatGPT. We obtained the perceptions of ChatGPT before the assignment. Then, after the use of ChatGPT to complete an essay, obtained perceptions of ChatGPT after using it. Previous research has indicated that new technological capabilities do not always change human perceptions and performance in expected ways. Additionally, student perceptions play a vital role in shaping their motivation, engagement, and academic achievement. As such, this study aims to provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of student perspectives of ChatGPT to fill this gap in the literature with a more informed and nuanced understanding of the use of AI in education. This article also seeks more practical contributions, including user-centered recommendations, for effectively integrating ChatGPT in both digital and physical classrooms, enhancing its use in writing assignments, improving AI technologies, and informing teachers with large language model-supported grading.