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Teachers more likely to accept low AI grades than equivalent human grades, study finds

Phys · · 349 words · By PNAS Nexus
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What to know about Teachers more likely to accept low AI grades than equivalent human grades, study finds

The article reports on a study published in PNAS Nexus involving over 1,300 Greek teachers. The research found that educators were more likely to accept overly harsh grades when they were attributed to an AI than when they were attributed to a human colleague.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 9
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center80%
Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Teachers more likely to accept low AI grades than equivalent human grades, study finds Gaby Clark Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Lead Editor Teachers were more likely to accept an overly harsh grade given to a student by AI than when the unduly low grade was…

Why it matters

As AI is increasingly integrated into decision-making, concerns about AI errors are often countered by assurances that humans will oversee and check the algorithm's work.

Common ground

Publishing in PNAS Nexus, Rigissa Megalokonomou and colleagues investigated patterns in human AI oversight, using teachers grading student work as a model.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article reports on a study published in PNAS Nexus involving over 1,300 Greek teachers. The research found that educators were more likely to accept overly harsh grades when they were attributed to an AI than when they were attributed to a human colleague.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-06-teachers-ai-grades-equivalent-human.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 9 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
info Single Source 2
verified Verified By Reference 2
info
Claim 1: “When they did deviate from the suggested scores, they tended to correct overly lenient scores to the same extent whether the suggestion came from a human or an algorithm.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence snippets mention the study's focus on harsh vs generous scores, but the specific finding that lenient scores were corrected to the same extent regardless of source is not explicitly corroborated across multiple independent sources in the provided text.
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 14, 2025 ... Every teacher saw the same student work and an erroneous 5/10 mark; we varied (i) whether the correct answers caused the score to be harsh or ...
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5294732.pdf?abstra…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 7, 2026 ... Nicoleen le Riche yes I see some pushback from students who critique the Brisk-Boost tutors for not providing the same output as Gemini or ...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/703007927897194/posts/153333…
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web search NEUTRAL — Feb 10, 2026 ... In addition, GenAI feedback quality was significantly associated with students' initial essay quality, whereas teacher feedback quality showed ...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41239-026-00579-9
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Claim 2: “Responses to survey questions suggest that teachers are more likely to accept a strict AI grade when they view the system as competent and accountable than when they see it as incompetent and unaccountable.”
CORROBORATED
The evidence explicitly states that acceptance of strict AI grades increased when teachers perceived the system as competent and accountable.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — 15.ai was a free non-commercial web application and research project that uses artificial intelligence to generate text-to-speech voices of fictional characters from popular media. Created by a pseudo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15.ai
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthropic, PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, founded with the goal of promoting AI safety. Its flagship product is …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses generative models to generate text, images, videos, audio, software code or other forms of data. Thes…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_AI
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “they tended to correct overly harsh scores less often when the suggested score was said to come from AI than when it came from a human colleague.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm that teachers were less likely to correct harsh scores when labeled as AI-generated compared to human-generated.
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 21, 2024 ... The more structured your writing is, the more likely it is to be flagged as AI. That's why an individual paragraph may pass but when you have ...
https://www.quora.com/I-wrote-an-essay-and-the-teacher-think…
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web search NEUTRAL — Apr 22, 2026 ... For perceived accuracy, a small-to-medium effect was observed favoring the teacher-label group (M = 4.17, SD = 0.69) over the AI-label group (M ...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40359-026-04568-5
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 14, 2025 ... Abstract. Using a randomized experiment, we test how educators revise grades labeled as AI- or human- generated. Every teacher saw the same ...
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5294732.pdf?abstra…
verified
Claim 4: “Over 1,300 working teachers in Greece were asked to check identical student responses to open-ended questions with scores labeled as either AI-generated or produced by a human colleague.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
While the general study is mentioned in other claims, the specific detail about 'over 1,300 working teachers in Greece' is not present in the provided evidence snippets. The Wikipedia results provided are generic and unrelated to this specific study.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Artificial intelligence visual art, or AI art, is visual artwork generated or enhanced through the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) programs, most commonly using text-to-image models. Th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_art
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Runway AI, Inc. (also known as Runway and RunwayML) is an American company headquartered in New York City that specializes in generative artificial intelligence research and technologies. The company …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_(company)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Synthetic media is digital content in various media formats, including text, image, and video, which has been automatically and artificially produced or manipulated. Although not all synthetic media i…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_media
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 5: “Why do experts miss AI's errors? Evidence from a randomized labeling experiment, PNAS Nexus (2026). doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag146”
CORROBORATED
The title, journal (PNAS Nexus), and date (2026) match the information found in multiple web search results.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anna's Archive is an open source search engine for shadow libraries that was launched by the pseudonymous Anna shortly after law enforcement efforts to shut down Z-Library in 2022. The site aggregates…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna's_Archive
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Michal Kosinski is an associate professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, a computational psychologist, and a psychometrician. His research spans computational psychometrics, the pr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michal_Kosinski
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales an…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
info
Claim 6: “The authors worked with three educators, a psychologist, and a communication specialist to create realistic grading scenarios and plausible grading errors.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence does not mention the specific composition of the team (three educators, a psychologist, and a communication specialist).
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web search NEUTRAL — Complete guide to psychology for students, educators & enthusiasts.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/
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web search NEUTRAL — Grades aren’t a draw in finding friends. To try and get a more accurate sense of this dynamic, this study’s authors examined a collection of data gathered in 2013-2014 regarding the social networks of…
https://studyfinds.com/need-better-grades-find-smarter-frien…
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web search NEUTRAL — The app will help reduce pre-flight anxiety and support you on board - as if a pilot and a psychologist were by your side throughout the journey.This project was created by Alex Gervash, a pilot, psyc…
https://skybriefing.org/
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Claim 7: “Teachers were more likely to accept an overly harsh grade given to a student by AI than when the unduly low grade was handed out by a human.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results (dated June 2026) explicitly state that teachers were more likely to accept low AI grades than equivalent human grades.
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web search NEUTRAL — Assistant teachers are additional teachers assisting the primary teacher, often in the same classroom. There are different types around the world, as well as a variety of formal programs defining role…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher
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web search NEUTRAL — Teachers offers a variety of career opportunities and a competitive benefits program. Get to know more about us and apply today. Teachers Federal Credit Union can help you reach and maintain the finan…
https://www.teachersfcu.org/
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web search NEUTRAL — Teachers.Net lesson bank offers over 3000 free lesson plan and curriculum and teacher project ideas. Our reference desk and library and teacher tools help teachers fully embrace today's opportunities.
https://teachers.net/
verified
Claim 8: “The resulting gap between the score the teachers gave and a fair score was 22% larger when the score was labeled as AI-generated than when it was labeled as human-generated.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The specific figure of a '22% larger' gap is not mentioned in any of the provided evidence snippets.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and dec…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A no-AI label is a label used on a product to signify that it was not made using generative AI. Phrases on the labels include but are not limited to "human-made", "proudly human" and "AI-free". Some o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-AI_label
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Scale AI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence infrastructure and software company based in San Francisco, California. Originally focused on data annotation, the company also offers RLHF servic…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_AI
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 9: “Publishing in PNAS Nexus, Rigissa Megalokonomou and colleagues investigated patterns in human AI oversight, using teachers grading student work as a model.”
CORROBORATED
Two independent web search results confirm that Rigissa Megalokonomou and colleagues published a study in PNAS Nexus regarding human AI oversight using teachers grading student work.
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 9, 2026 ... When teachers trust the ability of the AI system they may be less inclined to scrutinize its output, even when it diverges from their own ...
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/6/pgag146/87037…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 9, 2026 ... Publishing in PNAS Nexus, Rigissa Megalokonomou and colleagues investigated patterns in human AI oversight, using teachers grading student work ...
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-teachers-ai-grades-equivalent-…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Jun 28, 2026 ... As artificial intelligence becomes more common in professional settings, human oversight is often promoted as a safeguard against automated ...
https://www.psypost.org/teachers-say-they-distrust-ai-but-st…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.