Students’ Creativity, Originality, and Use of Generative AI in Irish Art, Design, and Technology Education

Abstract

The introduction of large language models to creative and technical education has exacerbated the discussion around their impact on student creativity and cognitive growth. Although productivity improvements have been in the spotlight of many studies, there has been less emphasis on the impact of continued algorithmic support on creative confidence and student work uniqueness. This paper fills this gap by conducting a quantitative survey on 100 undergraduate and postgraduate participants from two Irish institutions, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) and Atlantic Technological University (ATU), representing varying disciplinary backgrounds. The group consisted of 31 female participants and 69 male participants, stratified to reflect disciplinary variance. The survey investigated trends in generative AI utilization, attitudes towards creative self-efficacy, and student perceptions of originality and ideational similarity. Results show a high degree of ambivalence. There was broad support among participants to use ChatGPT to increase efficiency in time, facilitate idea generation, and explain concepts; nevertheless, most complained of a lack of confidence and work becoming more generic. It is important to note that 68.0% said that their ideas were more similar to those of other users and 71.0% thought that even what they considered as original ideas showed similarities with regular AI-generated work. These findings suggest that AI-aided writing has pedagogic benefits but also implies cognitive reliance, standardisation, and absence of intellectual originality in areas that place emphasis on originality. The research contributes to concerns regarding cognitive offloading and the necessity of educational systems that do not compromise independent

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