RTL: AI-generated text in more than half of master’s theses

RTL Nieuws analyzed hundreds of master’s theses from twelve universities. Only Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Maastricht University were excluded from the study because their theses are not available online.

Traces of generative AI were found in 59 percent of the theses examined. In 14 percent, more than half of the text was generated by a chatbot, while 6 percent appeared to have been written almost entirely by AI.

Last week, the Amsterdam-based university newspaper Folia published a similar study. Using Pangram, the publication examined bachelor’s theses from the Faculty of Economics and Business. Of the 50 bachelor’s theses analyzed, 48 appeared to have been written at least partly by AI.

Fraud

Some students told RTL that they still consider themselves the authors of their theses, despite using AI. “To me, they are my thoughts. They are in there. Not facts that a chatbot wants to put in there,” one student said. Others denied using AI.

Minister of Education Rianne Letschert considers it fraud when a student has a thesis written entirely by AI. She says educational institutions should examine whether they are doing enough to check for this.

Pangram

RTL analyzed the texts using the AI tool Pangram, a detection program that identifies patterns commonly used by chatbots. Pangram can recognize text generated by tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.

According to scientists, Pangram takes a cautious approach: it detects less than half of texts written entirely by AI. The tool was previously used to find traces of AI in hundreds of posts by Prime Minister Rob Jetten. Education Minister Letschert has also used AI in a speech on occasion.

Not the entire thesis

The study did not analyze the full theses. RTL scanned 3,000 words from each thesis, the news organization reported. Master’s theses typically range from 10,000 to 20,000 words.

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.