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Kids who use ChatGPT as a study assistant do worse on tests (hechingerreport.org)

submitted 2 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Does AI actually help students learn? A recent experiment in a high school provides a cautionary tale.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that Turkish high school students who had access to ChatGPT while doing practice math problems did worse on a math test compared with students who didn’t have access to ChatGPT. Those with ChatGPT solved 48 percent more of the practice problems correctly, but they ultimately scored 17 percent worse on a test of the topic that the students were learning.

A third group of students had access to a revised version of ChatGPT that functioned more like a tutor. This chatbot was programmed to provide hints without directly divulging the answer. The students who used it did spectacularly better on the practice problems, solving 127 percent more of them correctly compared with students who did their practice work without any high-tech aids. But on a test afterwards, these AI-tutored students did no better. Students who just did their practice problems the old fashioned way — on their own — matched their test scores.

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[-] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

See also: competitive cognitive artifacts. https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2016/09/competitive-cognitive-artifacts-and.html

These are artifacts that amplify and improve our abilities to perform cognitive tasks when we have use of the artifact but when we take away the artifact we are no better (and possibly worse) at performing the cognitive task than we were before.

[-] vin@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 2 months ago

Did those using tutor AI spend less time on learning? That would have been worth measuring

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[-] Allero@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago

Perhaps unsurprisingly. Any sort of "assistance" with answers will do that.

Students have to learn why things work the way they do, and they won't be able to grasp it without going ahead and doing every piece manually.

[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

What do the results of the third group suggest? AI doesn't appear to have hindered their ability to manage by themselves under test conditions, but it did help them significantly with their practice results. You could argue the positive reinforcement an AI tutor can provide during test preparations might help some students with their confidence and pre-exam nerves, which will allow them to perform closer to their best under exam conditions.

[-] nyan@lemmy.cafe 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It suggests that the best the chatbot can do, after being carefully tailored for its job, is no better than the old methods (because the goal is for the students to be able to handle the subject matter without having to check every common operation with a third party, regardless of whether that's a chatbot or a textbook, and the test is the best indicator of that). Therefore, spending the electricity to run an educational chatbot for highschoolers isn't justified at this time, but it's probably worth rechecking in a few years to see if its results have improved. It may also be worth doing extended testing to determine whether there are specific subsets of the student body that benefit more from the chatbot than others. And allowing the students to seek out an untailored chatbot on their own is strongly counterindicated.

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[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

Youdontsay.png

[-] terminhell@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Maybe, if the system taught more of HOW to think and not WHAT. Basically more critical thinking/deduction.

This same kinda topic came up back when I was in middle/highschool when search engines became wide spread.

However, LLM's shouldn't be trusted for factual anything, same as Joe blows blog on some random subject. Did they forget to teach cross referencing too? I'm sounding too bitter and old so I'll stop.

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[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

There's a bunch of websites that give you the answers to most homework. You can just Google the question and find the answers pretty quickly. I assume the people using chatgtp to "study" are just cheating on homework anyway.

[-] BreathingUnderWater@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

No shit

[-] xelar@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

While I get that, AI could be handy for some subjects, where you wont put your future on. However using it extinsively for everything is quite an exaggeration.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 3 points 2 months ago

Duh

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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024

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