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

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

199 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As someone who has taught math to students in a classroom, unless you have at least a basic understanding of HOW the numbers are supposed to work, the tool - a calculator - is useless. While getting the correct answer is important, I was more concerned with HOW you got that answer. Because if you know how you got that answer, then your ability to get the correct answer skyrockets.

Because doing it your way leads to blindly relying on AI and believing those answers are always right. Because it's just a tool right?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

No where did I say a kid shouldn't learn how to do it. I said it's a tool, I'm saying it's a dumb argument/discussion.

If I said, students who only ever used a calculator didn't do as well on a test where calculators werent allowed, you would say " yeah no shit"

This is just an anti technology, anti new generation separation piece that divides people and will ultimately create a rifts that help us ignore real problems.