Human-AI Collaboration or Academic Misconduct? Measuring AI Use in Student Writing Through Stylometric Evidence

Human - Artificial Intelligence (HAI) collaboration in writing offers opportunities to enhance efficiency and boost student confidence; however, it also carries risks, such as reduced creativity, over - reliance on AI - generated content, and academic integrity (Kim & Lee, 2023) . While the ethical use of AI in education is widely acknowledged as a way to enhance student learning (Cotton et al., 2023; Foltynek et al., 2023), the rise of Unauthorised Content Generation (UCG) presents a significant challenge to academic misconduct. Measuring the extent and nature of HAI collaboration in academic contexts remains a critical challenge for educators, particularly as generative AI (genAI) tools become increasingly available and integrated into educational settings (Atchley et al., 2024; E. Oliveira et al., 2023) . Distinguishing AI - generated text from human - authored content is necessary for understanding student learning behaviours, supporting skill development, and maintaining academic integrity. Analysing student writing patterns can help educators evaluate how st udents engage with AI tools, track their writing skill progression, and identify areas where additional support is needed (Pan et al., 2025). Existing detection tools for AI - assisted misconduct often lack reliability, explainability, and resilience to circ umvention strategies such as paraphrasing (Cotton et al., 2023) . These challenges highlight the need for innovative, transparent, and robust approaches to address the unacknowledged use of genAI in HAI collaboration within academic writing (Kasneci et al., 2023) .