So, like, there was this big release of ChatGPT back in November 2022, and it was like a total game-changer, man. This chatbot could write paragraphs and papers in, like, no time, which was pretty wild considering that writing was always seen as a human thing, you know? And now, a bunch of data scientists wanted to check out how this whole thing was affecting college writing.
These researchers got access to all the online discussion board comments from college students at this one big public university, and they compared the quality of writing before and after ChatGPT came into the picture. These were, like, low-stakes assignments where students would just post their thoughts on a reading assignment in subjects like psychology or biology. Not super serious stuff, you know?
Now, these scientists didn’t sit down and read through all the 1,140,328 discussion board posts from 16,791 students. Nah, they fed all that data into these computer models to check out things like vocabulary, syntax, and readability. And guess what? The overall writing quality actually got better, man. It was a slow start in early 2023, but things really picked up from October 2023 till the end of the study in March 2024.
The lead researcher, Renzhe Yu, thinks it’s probably because of AI. I mean, what else could it be, right? But hey, his paper hasn’t been published in a fancy journal yet, so who knows?
Now, these researchers didn’t talk to any of the students, so they can’t say for sure if they were using ChatGPT or not. But the improvement in writing quality after ChatGPT showed up doesn’t seem like a coincidence, you know?
Seems like the students who were, like, not so great in English or had weak writing skills saw the biggest improvements after ChatGPT. The ones who were already good at English or had strong writing skills didn’t see as much of a boost. It’s like, maybe the bot wasn’t as helpful to them since they were already doing okay.
But get this, man. The students who weren’t so great at English or had weak writing skills actually ended up writing better than the ones who were good at English or had strong writing skills. It’s kinda crazy, right?
Now, here’s the kicker. The students who were from lower-income families didn’t improve as much as the richer kids. It’s like, the technology benefits the rich kids more, you know? But this professor dude from California thinks that might change in the future.
He says that low-income students will get better at using AI over time, so things might even out. But he thinks that the international students, especially, are gonna see some big and lasting improvements in their writing.
But like, just because the writing got better doesn’t mean these students are actually learning to write better, you know? It just means they know how to use this tech to sound good.
The researchers didn’t really look at the content of the writing, so who knows if the ideas made any sense. And they’re not sure if students were just copying the bot’s answers or actually doing the work themselves.
In this one dude’s class, he lets students use ChatGPT for assignments as long as they admit to it and show their chats with the bot. But he’s noticed that the quality of writing has actually gone down lately. More students are turning in stuff that sounds okay but doesn’t really make sense.
So, like, it all comes down to motivation, you know? If students aren’t motivated to learn, then all this tech is just gonna be wasted.
If you wanna chat about this article, hit up Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595 or shoot her an email at barshay@hechingerreport.org.
And that’s the scoop on how ChatGPT is changing the writing game, man.
