Survey on AI- NSA Students and Staff

Simply by typing a command on ChatGPT or other generative AI sites, people can fool

others into believing that they have created something entirely produced by AI. Many students do this to bypass their assignments or essays in school. However, at NSA, most people polled don’t like AI and reject its use in schools.

I polled my school to see what NSA thought about AI. I was curious about how our

students used sources like ChatGPT:

The first graph shows that of the 128 people who took the survey about AI, 37.5% have

never used AI for school, and 30.5% only used it with a teacher's permission. That's over 50% of students who don't use AI for school unless told to. The second graph explains how often students use AI in school and for assignments: 45.3% of students have never used AI for an assignment. The other biggest block, 34.4%, is the students who have used AI for some essays and assignments.

The following graph explains that 40.4% of the students who used AI on an assignment answered they only used it to check their work and that they were correct. 14% said they didn't understand and used AI to help them figure out what was being asked of them.

However, the most interesting answers from this survey came from the open-ended

optional response asking: What do you think about AI in schools? Many people answered that they felt it had no place in schools. Here are a few responses that were against AI:

“If plagiarism is cheating, then ChatGPT is cheating.”

“I think it’s horrible, Ai is taking away the beauty of humanity and it’s causing bad

habits.”

“It is taking from our ability to learn.”

Most people who were against it in schools were fighting for it not to be involved in art, a

repeatable fight at a school of the arts:

“I don’t support the use, especially on art, it puts a bad image on real artists who have

fought for an ounce of recognition and struggle to make pieces, pieces that represent

them.”

“AI should NEVER EVER EVER be used in art. Art is a representation of the human soul, skill, and culture, AI is a robot and incapable of capturing the human experience. AI is also putting people out of jobs, and it’s destroying Art around the world.”

There were a few students who thought AI had its place in schools and thought its use

was beneficial, though they mostly agreed that AI should have restrictions and noted that it can be mistreated:

“its okay, and should be allowed to some extension.”

“I think if it’s used appropriately, it’s helpful and useful.”

“i think they can be helpful but can also be taken advantage of."

And some students had much more to say about it, explaining that it’s the people using

AI that are the problem, rather than AI in of itself:

“Ai CAN be helpful if used properly, but the amount of people who use it lazily makes a whole domino effect. People only think of AI as a thing to just do the work for you, when in fact it shouldn't be that way. Use it as a tool to help, maybe for inspiration or something else, not for your own lack of self confidence or even just CARE to do it. ESPECIALLY with art. I have used Ai for art before, without sharing it online and instead just to maybe get inspiration for colors or something else. The freedom it gives people is dangerous for themselves and it shouldn't be allowed at all. YAP FEST OVER.”

“I don’t think AI Itself is bad I think Its the way people use it is where the problem is. If people are using AI to write their essays or do all their work that’s the problem. I think grammarly is fine. Not everyone is a perfectionist or can get everything write when it comes to essays.”

In conclusion, NSA students are primarily opposed to using AI. Most students dislike AI use in schools, especially in art, so ChatGPT doesn’t seem to be a viable option at the Nashville School of the Arts.

TEACHERS

Along with polling NSA’s student body, I also polled the school’s teachers; I wondered

about their use of AI and letters of recommendation. I got to poll 17 teachers across the entire school.

While the data shown is pretty evenly split between sometimes using AI and never using

AI for school, it's easy to say that the majority of teachers polled use AI for school purposes.

Though, when looking at whether teachers use AI to write letters of recommendation

most answered no with just a few answering that they have:

The more interesting answers of the survey came from the open-ended answers

received. I asked two questions like this: “If you answered yes to (having written a letter of

recommendation with AI), what would you say to a student who believes that teachers using AI for recommendation letters is unethical? What do you believe?” And “What do you think about AI in schools?”

The answers to the first question were almost all unanimously agreed that they only use

AI as a starting point or as a template and then add students’ personal data to it. And the

answers to the second question was also almost unanimous in the way teachers view AI:

“I think it's a blessing and a curse.”

“Students should learn to use it ethically, rather than for just copy/paste. It is a

vehicle for information, not THE information.”

“I think like any tool in society, it can be used for good and bad.”

There are many similarities between the student and teacher responses. Both view AI as

a tool, though it certainly doesn’t replace creativity or personal voice in any way. It seems like

NSA is pretty unanimous against the AI takeover of schools. What do you think?