Students’ Reflections on their use of Open AI in Business and Professional Writing

Abstract

Educators are embracing and encouraging university students to use OpenAI to complete their writing and research assignments, as long as they use it ethically by following instructors’ guidelines and providing due credit according to academic writing conventions.  Writing instructors are also quickly adapting to the use of OpenAI to enhance their pedagogy and assessment and to make their teaching more accessible and targeted. However, opinions are still divided on what really “ethical” use of generative AI in writing classes means. While some writing instructors opine that AI is here to stay and denying students from using the technology will be detrimental to their educational accomplishments in the age of artificial intelligence, others prohibit the use of any kind of technology in the writing classes as they think this is detrimental to the development of the craft of writing, which is the main objective of the writing classes, and impacts their creativity and critical thinking. University students, on the other hand, cannot imagine completing their assignments without using AI as they do in every other aspect of their life. It is also interesting to note that while students demand free use of OpenAI to complete their written tasks, they do not appreciate professors using the same technology to provide feedback and assess their writing. This paper aims to report students’ perspectives on their use of OpenAI in the Business and Professional Writing classes and the issues concerning originality and creativity, as well as issues of plagiarism and academic integrity. A content analysis of students’ written reflections on their use of generative AI in completing their group writing project in a Sino-American collaborative university reveals that students are appreciative of instructors’ openness to the use of generative AI in writing assignments but are aware of the pitfalls of using AI unethically to complete their assignments. Their views can help instructors to adapt a more nuanced approach to the use of generative AI in writing classes.