A Grade for Artificial Intelligence: A Study on School Teachers’ Ability to Identify Assignments Written by Generative Artificial Intelligence

Tests and analysis of variance were conducted to compare the identification accuracy of assignments and the relationship with teachers' expertise, and regressions were performed to examine the relationships between identification accuracy, personality traits, and self-efficacy in detecting originality. Teachers were able to identify AI-generated assignments but struggled with student-generated ones. Furthermore, teachers with more expertise exhibited a potential bias against students, mistakenly identifying their work as AI-generated. While teachers were able to evaluate assignments objectively, openness and conscientiousness predicted their self-efficacy in assessing originality. We discuss how educators may learn new opportunities to use generative AI to promote learning and engagement. Although students may leverage AI to minimize their workload, AI represents a way to support them during the learning process, if it is developed taking into account students' and teachers' needs and characteristics.