research-article

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“It's not like Jarvis, but it's pretty close!” - Examining ChatGPT's Usage among Undergraduate Students in Computer Science

Authors:

Ritvik Budhiraja,

Jagat Sesh Challa,

Harshal D. Akolekar,

Dhruv KumarAuthors Info & Claims

ACE '24: Proceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference

Pages 124 - 133

https://doi.org/10.1145/3636243.3636257

Published: 29 January 2024 Publication History

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Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Google Bard have garnered significant attention in the academic community. Previous research has evaluated these LLMs for various applications such as generating programming exercises and solutions. However, these evaluations have predominantly been conducted by instructors and researchers, not considering the actual usage of LLMs by students. This study adopts a student-first approach to comprehensively understand how undergraduate computer science students utilize ChatGPT, a popular LLM, released by OpenAI. We employ a combination of student surveys and interviews to obtain valuable insights into the benefits, challenges, and suggested improvements related to ChatGPT. Our findings suggest that a majority of students (over 57%) have a convincingly positive outlook towards adopting ChatGPT as an aid in coursework-related tasks. However, our research also highlights various challenges that must be resolved for long-term acceptance of ChatGPT amongst students. The findings from this investigation have broader implications and may be applicable to other LLMs and their role in computing education.

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“It's not like Jarvis, but it's pretty close!” - Examining ChatGPT's Usage among Undergraduate Students in Computer Science

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cover image ACM Other conferences

ACE '24: Proceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference

January 2024

208 pages

ISBN:9798400716195

DOI:10.1145/3636243

Editors:
Nicole Herbert
University of Tasmania
,
Carolyn Seton
Southern Cross University

Copyright © 2024 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 29 January 2024

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ACE 2024: Australian Computing Education Conference

January 29 - February 2, 2024

NSW, Sydney, Australia

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Cited By

Keuning HAlpizar-Chacon ILykourentzou IBeehler LKöppe Cde Jong ISosnovsky S(2024)Students' Perceptions and Use of Generative AI Tools for Programming Across Different Computing CoursesProceedings of the 24th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3699538.3699546(1-12)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3699538.3699546
Stone I(2024)Exploring Human-Centered Approaches in Generative AI and Introductory Programming Research: A Scoping ReviewProceedings of the 2024 Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research10.1145/3689535.3689553(1-7)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689535.3689553
Stone I(2024)Investigating the Use of ChatGPT to Support the Learning of Python Programming Among Upper Secondary School Students: A Design-Based Research StudyProceedings of the 2024 Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research10.1145/3689535.3689537(1-1)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689535.3689537
Adnin RDas M(2024)"I look at it as the king of knowledge": How Blind People Use and Understand Generative AI ToolsProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675631(1-14)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663548.3675631
Grande VKiesler NFrancisco R. MMonga MLonati VBarendsen ESheard JPaterson J(2024)Student Perspectives on Using a Large Language Model (LLM) for an Assignment on Professional EthicsProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653624(478-484)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649217.3653624
Kim NKo HMyers GBach B(2024)ChatGPT in Data Visualization Education: A Student Perspective2024 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL/HCC60511.2024.00022(109-120)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/VL/HCC60511.2024.00022

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