Researchers compare math progress of almost 1,000 high school students

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.

  • @LedivinEnglish
    5•12 days ago

    Obviously no one’s going to learn anything if all they do is blatantly asking for an answer and writings.

    You should try reading the article instead of just the headline.

    • Praise IdlenessEnglish
      2•12 days ago

      The researchers believe the problem is that students are using the chatbot as a “crutch.” When they analyzed the questions that students typed into ChatGPT, students often simply asked for the answer. Students were not building the skills that come from solving the problems themselves.

      I did? What are you trying to say?