How can students use artificial intelligence without allowing it to replace the skills they are supposed to develop? Three researchers at Noroff University College explored this question at a time when ChatGPT was still new. Just over a year after publication, their research has been cited more than 140 times.
Generative artificial intelligence has transformed the way we write, learn, and work in a remarkably short time. For higher education, the rapid development has raised an important question: What happens when technology becomes capable of producing the very work students are expected to do themselves?
This was one of the questions that caught the attention of Johan van Niekerk, Petrus M. J. Delport, and Iain Sutherland at Noroff University College.
Their research resulted in the article Addressing the Use of Generative AI in Academic Writing, published in Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence in June 2025.
Since then, the article has been cited 143 times.
An Early Question About ChatGPT
The idea for the research emerged when ChatGPT was still a relatively new technology and its ability to generate convincing written content was only beginning to become apparent.
For the researchers, that immediately raised questions about how students might respond.
- Our very first question was whether it was going to change the way students behave. Would this have an impact on cheating and other behaviours where students don't do their own work? Johan van Niekerk says.
Rather than relying on assumptions about how students might use the technology, the researchers wanted to investigate the question through an established academic framework.
They turned to the Technology Acceptance Model, which examines how people's willingness to adopt technology is influenced by how useful and easy to use they perceive it to be.
This gave the researchers a way to explore whether students who encountered ChatGPT would actually intend to use it for academic writing instead of doing the writing themselves.
Keeping the Human in the Loop
The research also points to a broader lesson about how generative AI should be approached in education.
As increasingly capable AI tools become part of everyday study and working life, the researchers believe it is essential that users continue to question and evaluate what the technology produces.
- We hope that students and other academics will recognise that AI on its own should never simply be trusted, and that there should always be a human in the loop when using AI to do work for you, van Niekerk shares.
The study also demonstrates how established academic theories can be applied to entirely new technological developments. The researchers hope students will see that models they encounter during their education can become practical tools for investigating complex questions in their future careers.
More Than 130 Citations in Just Over a Year
The research has quickly reached an international academic audience.
During its first year, the article received around ten citations per month, taking it well beyond 100 citations within a year. It has now been cited 143 times.
The researchers point to two main reasons for the attention: timing and where the research was published.
- We were among the very first academic papers to explore the use of ChatGPT for academic writing using a formal research approach, rather than simply offering opinions about what the technology might mean, says van Niekerk.
The article was also published in Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, part of the Computers & Education family of journals and a specialist forum for research into artificial intelligence and education.
At a time of rapidly growing interest in the implications of AI, that combination helped put the research in front of an international community looking for evidence-based insights into a technology that was developing at extraordinary speed.
Could AI Make Education More Human?
The questions raised by generative AI have only become more pressing since the research began.
For higher education, one of the biggest challenges may not be whether students use AI, but how institutions can determine whether students have actually developed the knowledge and skills their education is intended to provide.
Traditionally, an essay, report, piece of code, or other finished product could serve as evidence of what a student had learned. Generative AI complicates that relationship. Someone can now produce an impressive final result without necessarily possessing all of the underlying knowledge required to create it independently.
That could shift attention away from simply evaluating the finished product and towards understanding the process behind it.
- Generative AI changes that. People who lack the underlying knowledge can now produce remarkably good outputs. This forces us to focus much more on the process by which students produce their work, van Niekerk says.
For educators, this could mean more emphasis on authentic assessment, direct interaction with students, and understanding how they think, solve problems, and apply their knowledge.
It may also create an unexpected consequence.
- In a sense, I think this will force education to become more human again, van Niekerk says.
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of producing convincing answers, the researchers' work points towards something technology cannot easily replace: the importance of human judgement, critical thinking, and genuine understanding.
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