2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

IEEE format is a core technical communication standard in electrical and computer engineering (ECE). Using IEEE format helps students improve their technical writing. In addition, the expectation of mastering IEEE format is codified by ABET Criterion 3 (Student Outcomes). Most ECE curricula include a required technical writing course that introduces IEEE format. However, many undergraduate ECE students still have difficulty implementing IEEE format in their course project reports even after taking this writing course. They struggle with formatting tables and figures, inserting equations, constructing a reference list, and applying citation rules. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) offers a possible way to support students in learning IEEE format. This study examines whether increased access to generative AI tools is associated with undergraduate ECE students’ use of these tools in completing project reports. It also examines whether increased access to and autonomous use of generative AI tools have influenced undergraduate ECE students’ ability to correctly apply IEEE formatting conventions in their course project reports. Sixty-seven anonymized student project reports were collected from an undergraduate senior-level Control Systems course in two academic terms: Spring 2022 (baseline condition) and Spring 2025 (post-ChatGPT condition). We used AI-detection software to indirectly infer students’ AI use in writing project reports by flagging text that might have been generated by AI. Student project reports were evaluated solely for IEEE-format compliance. Two raters independently rated each report, with substantial interrater agreement (κ = 0.66). We used a Mann–Whitney U test to compare baseline and post-ChatGPT conditions for IEEE-compliance. We did not observe a statistically significant difference in IEEE-format compliance between the baseline and post-ChatGPT conditions. Our qualitative content analysis found that the most common problems involved missing equation numbers and figure captions, and incorrect citations. These issues also tended to appear together more often in the post-ChatGPT condition. Our findings suggest that unguided AI use alone does not improve mastery of IEEE format. Future research is needed to help students use AI tools effectively in technical writing.