Use of Artificial Intelligence and Plagiarism Testing Practices among Ph.D. Students at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated use of artificial intelligence (AI) and plagiarism testing practices among Ph.D. students in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ibadan. Descriptive research design was adopted. The population for this study consists of the Ph.D. students in the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and utilised total enumeration sampling technique. Survey questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation was used to answer research questions, while regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that AI applications such as ChatGPT and Grammarly are frequently used to support a variety of academic tasks. While daily used common available tools such as Turnitin for plagiarism verification, highly advanced AI applications such as Microsoft Azure AI and TensorFlow are seldom utilised. The result (r = -.010, n = 210, df = 209, p = .8830) implies that there is no correlation between the level of use of AI and the prevalence of plagiarism. The study brings to the forefront the growing application of AI in doctoral studies and the need for having guidelines to ensure ethical application. Universities are encouraged to review their plagiarism policies regularly to reflect the realities of AI being integrated into academia.