Generative AI and Academic Integrity in Higher Education: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

In short

A review of 41 studies from 2021 to 2024 on generative AI and academic honesty reports engagement benefits but serious dishonesty risks, and calls for digital literacy and stronger detection tools.

What it looked at

A systematic literature review. Searches ran across databases including ABI/INFORM, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore and JSTOR, the last in May 2024, and 41 studies discussing generative AI in higher education met the inclusion criteria. The authors combined themes qualitatively and counted trends where they could.

What it means for teaching

Useful as an overview of where the evidence stood, bearing in mind the review's own caveats about which sources it searched.

Limits

The authors note that the range of databases searched was narrow, which may have restricted the perspectives found, and that later work should use more databases and more varied study designs.

Cited 576 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.