Almost a quarter of year 12 students at a boys’ school in Melbourne’s outer east have been caught using AI to cheat on a key English exam.
Up to 50 boys at Mulgrave’s Mazenod College were caught after their oral assessments, submitted two weeks ago, aroused suspicion among teachers and triggered a review of the assessments.
The Catholic school’s principal Paul Shannon said the review uncovered evidence of AI being used by students to help them in their exams, which were designed to assess the students’ understanding of the subject and to test their independent thinking.
He said the students were spoken to and had “the appropriate reduction in marks for the affected assessment”.
“Following a review of the year 12 oral English exam process, the college identified evidence that suggested artificial intelligence tools were used by several students,” Shannon said on Tuesday in a statement.
“While the use of AI tools is a growing challenge within all schools, they have no place in assessments and examinations, where every student must be able to demonstrate their own knowledge, independently and fairly.”
Despite catching nearly a quarter of its year 12s cheating, Mazenod said the school did not believe the behaviour had been coordinated among the students.
Speaking ahead of this week’s The Age Education Summit, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) chief executive Andrew Smith last week told this masthead he believed teachers were best placed to spot AI activity, even though the state exam authority sets the VCE exams.
“I think teachers are the best AI detector we have because they know their students, they know their capabilities, they’re working with them, and they have the capacity to interrogate their work,” he said.
“We want to always make sure that there’s integrity in the assessment that is the right balance between teachers’ judgment and that independent assessment that comes through the examination.”
Smith said the VCAA was considering the future of exams and ways to ensure their integrity, and did not rule out changing exams if teachers pushed for adjustments.
“We will keep talking to teachers and monitoring that, and if they give us the kind of feedback that suggests we need to adjust, that’s what we’ll look at,” he said.
The VCAA said disallowed or unattributed use of AI may be a breach of academic integrity, and it’s up to the school to investigate.
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Caroline Schelle is an education reporter, and joined The Age in 2022. She previously covered courts at AAP.Connect via X or email.
