AI has become more common in education, and a new study asks the question, does it help students learn? The study’s authors conducted an experiment with high school students, and the findings suggest the answer is not simple.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania tested Turkish high school students using ChatGPT on math practice problems. Students who had access to the tool during practice solved 48% more math problems correctly, but scored 17% lower on the subsequent test compared to those without it.
A third group used a modified ChatGPT, which acts at a tutor, offering hints instead of direct answers. They did much better on practice problems and were able to solve 127% more of them. But these students still did not perform any better on tests than normal.
The study suggests students rely too much on AI as a crutch, asking for answers instead of solving problems themselves. ChatGPT’s inaccuracies didn’t help either, as the tool was wrong about 42% of the time in its problem-solving approach.
Despite this, students believe ChatGPT hasn’t hurt their learning. The researchers compared this to pilots overly relying on autopilot, warning that too much dependence on AI could undermine learning.
