Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Generating Exam Questions for Islamic Studies Courses

Abstract

Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) began in 1956; however, its implementation as a tool to simplify human life and add practical and professional value to their work was delayed by many decades. This delay occurred until AI became equipped with various forms of machine learning capable of identifying data patterns, enabling predictive capabilities. AI has proven its ability to transform work methods across various fields.  New technologies, such as machine learning and deep learning, contribute to analyzing massive amounts of data quickly and accurately. This facilitates the extraction of patterns and trends that may not be apparent to human intelligence. AI can also generate educational content, including questions, answers, and tests, providing teachers with additional resources and interactive learning methods. Automating highly complex tasks, in addition to routine ones, has become a necessity and a requirement using AI.  As this technology continues to evolve, its applications are likely to expand in the future, creating new opportunities and driving societal progress. To assess AI's role in generating questions for religious studies curricula, the researchers used the ChatGPT tool to generate diverse questions after providing it with the curriculum material. A question bank (one hundred questions) was created, combining questions from the course instructor and ChatGPT. Students were asked to answer the questions, indicating whether the question was posed by the professor or ChatGPT. The researchers then analyzed and commented on the results. The research yielded several key findings: First: AI can assist faculty members in automating tasks, such as summarizing material, organizing it, and creating questions and assignments related to the curriculum.  However, complete reliance on AI is not yet feasible, as a degree of error was observed in true/false questions and multiple-choice/multiple-answer questions. Second: AI-generated questions were distinguished from the instructor's questions by their diversity and coverage of all curriculum elements.  Thus, AI saves instructors time and effort in ensuring that questions encompass the entire syllabus. Thirdly: Artificial intelligence has succeeded in generating questions according to Bloom's taxonomy by using Bloom's action verbs that include: (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation), which ensures a variety of levels of thinking in the required responses.