Potentials and Challenges of Chatbot-Supported Thesis Writing: An Autoethnography

Abstract

The release of the large language model-based chatbot ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022 has brought considerable attention to the subject of artificial intelligence, not only to the public. From the perspective of higher education, ChatGPT challenges various learning and assessment formats as it significantly reduces the effectiveness of their learning and assessment functionalities. In particular, ChatGPT might be applied to formats that require learners to generate text, such as bachelor theses or student research papers. Accordingly, the research question arises to what extent writing of bachelor theses is still a valid learning and assessment format. Correspondingly, in this exploratory study, the first author was asked to write his bachelor’s thesis exploiting ChatGPT. For tracing the impact of ChatGPT methodically, an autoethnographic approach was used. First, all considerations on the potential use of ChatGPT were documented in logs, and second, all ChatGPT chats were logged. Both logs and chat histories were analyzed and are presented along with the recommendations for students regarding the use of ChatGPT suggested by a common framework. In conclusion, ChatGPT is beneficial for thesis writing during various activities, such as brainstorming, structuring, and text revision. However, there are limitations that arise, e.g., in referencing. Thus, ChatGPT requires continuous validation of the outcomes generated and thus fosters learning. Currently, ChatGPT is valued as a beneficial tool in thesis writing. However, writing a conclusive thesis still requires the learner’s meaningful engagement. Accordingly, writing a thesis is still a valid learning and assessment format. With further releases of ChatGPT, an increase in capabilities is to be expected, and the research question needs to be reevaluated from time to time.

AI Chatbots in Higher Education. A state-of-the-art review of an emerging research area

“…Barrett ChatGPT use and identify that their ndings are consistent with the prior literature on technology acceptance, in that perceived usefulness was found to be a strong predictor of behavioral intention (Lai et al, 2023). In a single respondent autoethnographic study (Schwenke et al, 2023), the authors report that there was a perceived value in using an AI chatbot to structure one's thoughts during the writing of a degree thesis, but that the process required a process of continues validation. Al-Zahrani, (2023) found that students had a positive outlook of GAI and reported they were aware of the ethical concerns associated with their use.…”

“…Looking at the methodological choices re ected in the selected studies (see Appendix 1 or Notion for an overview of the results) we observe that our corpus consists of one small-scale but in-depth autoethnography study with (n = 1) participant (Schwenke et al, 2023), a survey study (n = 505) addressing students' perceptions of whether they were ready to engage with generative AI in their future roles (Al-Zahrani, 2023), and another large scale study with (n = 1117) participants that examined the uptake of technology (Habibi et al, 2023) We identify a number of studies focusing on second language learning (n = 5) where the ndings in these studies suggest that chatbots facilitate students structuring their thoughts in the second language, for example in (Yan, 2023;Zou & Huang, 2023). In this category, Escalante et al examined the differences between chatbot written and tutor written feedback, and found that students did not value tutor written feedback more than chatbot written feedback (Escalante et al, 2023).…”

Perceptions of Primary School Teacher Education Students to the Use of ChatGPT to Support Learning in the Digital Era

“…A lot of pupils use this app instead of doing an assignment that the teacher assigns. A lot of students use this ChatGPT chat to finish their final project's thesis [45]. This situation creates a challenge for the education system.…”

Exploring the Impact of Language Models on Undergraduate Thesis Writing Skills among Higher Education Students

“…Several investigations have been carried out to explore the role of language models, driven by artificial intelligence, within the realm of education and research under various contexts such as the opportunities and challenges of language models in education Kasneci et al, 2023;Schwenke et al, 2023;Yan et al, 2024;Meyer et al, 2023), the influence of language models on tertiary education and research (Alqahtani et al, 2023;Cacciuttolo et al, 2023;Sallam, 2023;Zekaj, 2023), and the role of AI including language models in teaching and learning (Chauncey, et al, 2023;Tayan et al, 2023). Furthermore, several preceding scholars (Koka et al, 2023;Livberber & Ayvaz, 2023;Olsson & Engelbrektsson, 2022) added the body of knowledge of the academic's responses towards artificial intelligence including language models in education.…”