City Research Online

Abstract

Background: The rapid use of generative AI (GenAI) by students in essay assessments poses unique challenges to academic integrity. With limited research on this topic, questions arise about how UK educators perceive and experience the use of GenAI in traditional essay-type assessments (TETAs). The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of UK healthcare educators regarding TETAS in the Era of GenAI.
Methods: An exploratory descriptive qualitative design was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 healthcare academics from disciplines including Radiography, Midwifery, Speech and Language Therapy, and Nursing. With the support of NVIVO version-14, data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Three themes emerged: (1) Experiences of suspicion cues and verification challenges; (2) Perceptions of appropriate GenAI use in assessments; and (3) Relevance of essay-type assessments in the GenAI era. Participants reported widespread evidence of AI-generated content in student submissions. They also indicated relying largely on intuitive detection methods such as identifying “red flags” including suspicious references, shallow content, unusual language patterns, and fabricated elements, among others. However, their inability to definitively confirm AI use created uncertainty, frustration, and ethical discomfort, undermining trust between faculty and students and threatening academic fairness.

Conclusion
This exploratory qualitative study reveals that healthcare educators continue to observe what they perceive as irresponsible use of GenAI in essay-based assessments, while facing a complex “detection dilemma.” While participants acknowledged the continued relevance of essays and recognised the potential for GenAI to be used appropriately for limited tasks, they expressed concern that unregulated use may profoundly affect learning, assessment integrity, and professional competence. It is therefore recommended that higher education institutions develop clear strategies to address the irresponsible use of AI in assessment and empower educators to detect AI use in essay-based assessments.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Publisher Keywords:	Artificial intelligence, Generative AI, Essay assessments, Healthcare educators, Experiences and perceptions
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Allied Health
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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