Title: The Use of ChatGPT as a Writing Assistant in Accomplishing Students' Thesis Proposal Writing
Authors: Ery Sri Ayuni
Aan Erlyana Fardhani
Volume: 10
Issue: 8
Pages: 174-181
Publication Date: 2026/08/28
Abstract:
This research is driven by the increasingly widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education over the past few years. This research has a clear objective to analyze the potential benefits and possible challenges that may arise from the use of ChatGPT as an assistant to help students in writing complex academic assignments, namely the Undergraduate Thesis Proposal Course. This research employs a Qualitative Research as the research design, focusing on an in-depth exploration of user experiences. In selecting the most suitable research participants, a screening process was conducted via Google Form Questionnaire. Then, the data for this research were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with six participants who best met the required criteria. After that, the research data was analyzed by Thematic Analysis, and the Member Checking Technique was used to validate the research data. The research finding evinced that students experienced both benefits and challenges in using ChatGPT as a writing assistant in accomplishing their thesis proposal writing. Specifically, the benefits students perceived could be categorized into three types: Cognitive, Technical, and Affective assistances. In addition, the encountered challenges were related to accuracy and relevancy issues, contextual inconsistencies, and accusations of plagiarism. Besides, this research contributes to understanding of how Artificial Intelligence-based assistant can be integrated to accelerate and facilitate the undergraduate student thesis writing process, with the caveat that ChatGPT must be used wisely and serve only as a digital scaffolding or as support mechanism, rather than as a complete substitute for students' responsibility in accomplishing their thesis proposal writing.