Technology

59495 readers

3041 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

914

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

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 months ago

Something I've noticed with institutional education is that they're not looking for the factually correct answer, they're looking for the answer that matches whatever you were told in class. Those two things should not be different, but in my experience, they're not always the same thing.

I have no idea if this is a factor here, but it's something I've noticed. I have actually answered questions with a factually wrong answer, because that's what was taught, just to get the marks.