2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Student Use of ChatGPT to Write an Engineering Report

Presented at MECH - Technical Session 13: Technological Advancements and Applications

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, like ChatGPT, are increasingly being used by engineering students to help write reports submitted for academic credit. This paper presents a concise overview of findings from a writing assignment in a mechanical engineering thermodynamics course. The assignment requires students to research and summarize findings on a contemporary topic associated with energy and its use. With ChatGPT, improvements are observed in grammar, organization, and conclusions. Areas with little or no improvement are visuals, equations, and references. AI assistance in engineering education is anticipated to continue to expand, especially as AI tools improve and become integrated with other tools already used by students. It is important for faculty to have a firm understanding of how AI tools are being used by students to write reports. Faculty perspectives differ on how AI assistance can benefit engineering students while avoiding academic dishonesty issues. Faculty will need to communicate the permissible and prohibited usage of AI tools in future assignments.

Authors

Dr. Randall D. Manteufel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9829-2723 The University of Texas at San Antonio [biography]

Dr. Randall Manteufel is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He has won several teaching awards, including the 2012 University of Texas System Regents Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2013 UTSA President’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2019 College of Engineering Student Council Professor of the Year Award, 2008, 2022, 2024 College Excellence in Teaching, and 2005 Mechanical Engineering Instructor of the year award, 1999 ASEE-GSW Outstanding New Faculty Award. His teaching and research interests are in the thermal sciences. In 2015-2016, he chaired the American Society for Engineering Education Gulf Southwest section and in 2018-2019 he chaired the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars at UTSA. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas.
Dr. Amir Karimi The University of Texas at San Antonio [biography]

Amir Karimi, University of Texas, San Antonio
Amir Karimi is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky in 1982. His teaching and research interests are in thermal sciences. He has served as the Chair of Mechanical Engineering (1987 to 1992 and September 1998 to January of 2003), College of Engineering Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (Jan. 2003-April 2006), and the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies (April 2006-September 2013). Dr. Karimi is a Fellow of ASEE, a Fellow of ASME, senior member of AIAA, and holds membership in ASHRAE, and Sigma Xi. He has served as the ASEE Campus Representative at UTSA, ASEE-GSW Section Campus Representative, and served as the Chair of ASEE Zone III (2005-07). He chaired the ASEE-GSW section during the 1996-97 academic year.

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