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ChatGPT is being used by millions of students all over the world, but is it actually better than what the students can produce without AI?
Remember the year 2022? It was the year the world’s population reached eight billion, the Omicron variant of Covid-19 swept the globe, and OpenAI launched ChatGPT.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, it has become an integrated part of everyday life for millions of people around the world—understandable, as AI is probably here to stay.
Students all over the world use the platform for everything from writing applications and checking spelling to translating texts and even writing essays for them. But this raises an important question: Is ChatGPT actually as good as, or even better than, the students themselves?
ChatGPT vs Students
A team of researchers from the University of East Anglia (UK) decided to put this to the test by having students write their own texts and then comparing them with essays produced by ChatGPT—and the results speak for themselves.
The researchers compared essays written by 145 real students with essays produced by ChatGPT. They evaluated the texts based on several parameters, including coherence, grammatical skills, and personal touch.
And the winner is …
According to the researchers, the AI-produced essays were impressive in terms of coherence and grammatical accuracy, but they lacked one very important element: personal touch.
Professor Ken Hyland from UEA’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning said: “The fear is that ChatGPT and other AI writing tools potentially facilitate cheating and may weaken core literacy and critical thinking skills. (…) In response to these concerns, we wanted to see how closely AI mimics human essay writing.”
Engagement markers
Professor Hyland continued: “We were particularly interested in looking at what we called ‘engagement markers,’ such as questions and personal commentary.” This is where the real students clearly outperformed the AI.
The researchers found a wide range of rhetorical questions, direct appeals to the reader, and many other engagement strategies in the essays written by real students. The AI, on the other hand, was linguistically fluent but impersonal and less engaging.
AI can still play a crucial part
As of 2025, essays written by real students still appear to outperform those written by AI. However, this does not mean that AI should be banned from education. Instead, it should be used as a teaching aid rather than a shortcut.
The study was led by UEA in collaboration with Professor Kevin Jiang of Jilin University, China.
“Does ChatGPT write like a student? Engagement markers in argumentative essays” was published in the journal Written Communication.
