AI in Student-Faculty Email Communication 1

Email is vital in academic communication, especially for non-native English speakers. The rise of AI writing tools (e.g., ChatGPT) is reshaping communication, but their impact on email quality remains understudied.

As an experienced university instructor, your evaluation will provide key insights on:
- Effectiveness differences between AI-assisted and human-written emails
- Core features of high-quality academic emails

TASK: Evaluate 4 anonymized student emails (≈15 minutes)
In the following questions (5–8), you will review student emails addressed to faculty members. Please read each message carefully and base your judgments on its content. For each email:
✓ Assess the likelihood of AI assistance
✓ Rate its readability, politeness, and communicative effectiveness

Note: There are no right or wrong answers—your personal perceptions are essential to this research.

Ethical Assurance
■ Full anonymity ■ Data for research only ■ Withdraw anytime  
*
1.
Years of teaching experience at university level:
< 3 years
3-6 years
＞ 6 years
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2.
Primary academic discipline you teach:
Humanities & Social Sciences
STEM (Science/Tech/Engineering/Math)
Business & Economics
Arts & Design
Other
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3.
How many STUDENT emails do you receive on average per week?
0–10 emails
11–30 emails
31–50 emails
More than 50 emails
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4.
Have you encountered STUDENT emails that you suspected were AI-generated?
Never
Rarely (1-2 per week)
Occasionally (3-5 per week)
Frequently (over 5 per week)
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5.
Situation: 
Student needs to schedule a project meeting with Prof. Adams during office hours but conflicts with regular times, so requests an alternative time.

Office Hours Appointment Request

Dear Professor Adam,

I hope this message finds you well. I would like to request an appointment during your office hours.
My available times are Monday afternoon, Wednesday morning, or Friday. Please let me know if any of these would be convenient for you.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Mike

Email Evaluation:
Indicate if the email was written by AI or a human:
Strongly DisagreeDisagreeSomewhat DisagreeNeither Agree Nor DisagreeSomewhat AgreeAgreeStrongly Agree
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is easy to understand.
This email is easy to understand.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The request is clear.
The request is clear.
If received, I would respond positively.
If received, I would respond positively.
*
6.
Situation:
Student in LNG 01 Applied Linguistics declines Prof. Adams' research invitation due to a busy schedule and prior commitments.

Dear Professor Adams,

I hope this email finds you well. First, I really appreciate your invitation. Thank you so much for your kindness. However, I have to decline it because I already have another project in this summer. I am afraid that i can’t finish both of them. I am so sorry for that. It’s also a shame for me.
Thanks for your understanding. I look forward to work with you in the future!

Best regards,
Lily

Email Evaluation:
Indicate if the email was written by AI or a human:
Strongly DisagreeDisagreeSomewhat DisagreeNeither Agree nor DisagreeSomewhat AgreeAgreeStrongly Agree
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is easy to understand.
This email is easy to understand.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The request is clear.
The request is clear.
If received, I would respond positively.
If received, I would respond positively.
*
7.
Situation:
Student in LNG 01 Applied Linguistics declines Prof. Adams' research invitation due to a busy schedule and prior commitments.

Thank You for the Research Opportunity

Dear Professor Adams,

Thank you so much for inviting me to join your research project. I am truly honored by your offer and find the project's focus on sociolinguistic analysis incredibly exciting.
However, after careful consideration, I must regretfully decline due to my current academic workload and personal commitments. I want to ensure I can fully dedicate myself to my existing responsibilities without compromising the quality of my work.
I deeply appreciate your understanding and hope there may be opportunities to collaborate in the future. Wishing you and the team great success with the project!

Best regards,
Lily

Email Evaluation:
Indicate if the email was written by AI or a human:
Strongly DisagreeDisagreeSomewhat DisagreeNeither Agree nor DisagreeSomewhat AgreeAgreeStrongly Agree
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is easy to understand.
This email is easy to understand.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The request is clear.
The request is clear.
If received, I would respond positively.
If received, I would respond positively.
*
8.

Situation:

Student needs to schedule a project meeting with Prof. Adams during office hours but conflicts with regular times, so requests an alternative time.


Dear professor Adam,

I am your student Mike. I want to schedule an appointment with you during your
office time in this week to discuss an upcoming project. However, I found I had another activity need to attend in your usual office time. So I want to know if we can alter the
time that works for both of us.

Best wishes, yours Mike

Email Evaluation:
Indicate if the email was written by AI or a human:
Strongly DisagreeDisagreeSomewhat DisagreeNeither Agree nor DisagreeSomewhat AgreeAgreeStrongly Agree
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is AI-assisted.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is written by the student without any AI assistance.
This email is easy to understand.
This email is easy to understand.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The tone is polite for student-faculty communication.
The request is clear.
The request is clear.
If received, I would respond positively.
If received, I would respond positively.
*
9.
When deciding whether an email was AI-generated or human-written, what specific features did you rely on most? (Select all that apply)【多选题】
Tone Patterns （e.g., politeness, formality, consistency of tone）
Structural Elements（e.g., greeting, opening, closing）
Grammatical Features（e.g., tense consistency, subject-verb agreement, lexical variety）
Unusual/Awkward Expressions (e.g., word-for-word translation, misused slang or idioms)
Others（If you pick this, please briefly explain below!）
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10.
To what extent do you view EMI university students’ use of AI-assisted tools (e.g., ChatGPT) for email composition as positive or negative?
Completely negative
Slightly negative
Neutral
Slightly positive
Completely positive
*
11.
Thank you for your kind help! Finally, may we contact you for an around-30-minute interview to further explore your email evaluation experience?
Yes, I'm willing to participate. (- Contact method: ________ (Email/WeChat/Phone) - Preferred time: ________ (e.g., Weekday evenings)
No, thanks.
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