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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]

202 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] 28 points 2 months ago (4 children)

It's not about using it. It's about using it ina helpful and constructive manner. Obviously no one's going to learn anything if all they do is blatantly asking for an answer and writings.

LLM has been a wonderful tool for me to further understand various topics.

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

This! Don’t blame the tech, blame the grown ups not able to teach the young how to use tech!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The study is still valuable, this is a math class not a technology class, so understanding it's impact is important.

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

Yea, did not read that promptengineered chatGPT was better than non chatGPT class 😄 but I guess that proofs my point as well, because if students in group with normal chatGPT were teached how to prompt normal ChatGPT so that it answer in a more teacher style, I bet they would have similar results as students with promtengineered chatGPT

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

Can I blame the tech for using massive amounts of electricity, making e.g. Ireland use more fossil fuels again?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Well, I guess, I mean the evidence is clear, isn’t it?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If you actually read the article you will see that they tested both allowing the students to ask for answers from the LLM, and then limiting the students to just ask for guidance from the LLM. In the first case the students did significantly worse than their peers that didn't use the LLM. In the second one they performed the same as students who didn't use it. So, if the results of this study can be replicated, this shows that LLMs are at best useless for learning and most likely harmful. Most students are not going to limit their use of LLMs for guidance.

You AI shills are just ridiculous, you defend this technology without even bothering to read the points under discussion. Or maybe you read an LLM generated summary? Hahahaha. In any case, do better man.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months 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?

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

If you'd have read tye article, you would have learned that there were three groups, one with no gpt, one where they just had gpt access, and another gpt that would only give hints and clues to the answer, but wouldn't directly give it.

That third group tied the first group in test scores. The issue was that chat gpt is dumb and was often giving incorrect instructions on how to solve the answer, or came up with the wrong answer. I'm sure if gpt were capable of not giving the answer away and actually correctly giving instructions on how to solve each problem, that group would have beaten the no gpt group, easily.