ChatGPT, academic integrity, and plagiarism: perceptions of university students in education programs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23406256Keywords:
generative artificial intelligence, academic integrity, plagiarismAbstract
The use of ChatGPT in higher education poses challenges in distinguishing between technological support and the replacement of intellectual work. This study analyzed students’ perspectives on its use and its implications for academic integrity, with an emphasis on practices associated with plagiarism in 2025. A qualitative study based on hermeneutic phenomenology was conducted, involving nine students from the early childhood, elementary, and secondary education programs at the Loreto School of Higher Pedagogical Education. The testimonies obtained through interviews were analyzed inductively through transcription, reading, coding, and interpretation of units of meaning, with the support of ATLAS.ti. Academic integrity emerged as a cross-cutting theme that linked responsibility, verification, transparency, equity, faculty mediation, and writing support. Participants valued textual organization and time savings but also acknowledged practices of copying and concealing the use of artificial intelligence. Some believed that modifying words allowed them to avoid plagiarism, which highlighted tensions between stated honesty and the understanding of authorship. The findings suggest the need to jointly strengthen digital literacy and training in academic integrity through faculty guidance and the establishment of institutional criteria that promote the verification of information, the acknowledgment of sources, and transparency in the use of technological assistance tools.
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