New Study Shows Students Who Use AI Are Less Productive and Have Low Chances to Succeed in the Future

According to a recent repot, most of the youth use generative AI like ChatGPT because they lack cognitive skills and have less chances to succeed in life. Many AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini have become crucial parts of people’s lives, especially students, and they are being used for enhancing learning. But generative AI also encourages cheating in students. That’s why the researchers of a new study wanted to know how generative AI correlates with the performance of students.

Executive functioning (EF) or cognitive processes are important for learning as they have focus, research and memorize the stuff. These processes are important in educational settings as they play a role in completing complex tasks like writing papers. People with lower EF levels often struggle to complete their tasks. On the other hand, higher EF levels promise success in school and professional life.

The report says that when adolescents use AI tools, their EF levels get challenged. Students who already have lower EF levels often use generative AI to write their assignments. This means that AI tools provide support for students who are suffering from low EF and cannot do well in schools. Even though AI tools are said to boost productivity, it can be more harmful for people who are not even productive at all.

To find out more about it, the researchers conducted a study among two groups: Group one had 385 adolescents between the ages of 12 to 16 and group two had 359 students between the ages of 15 to 19. The results of the study showed that 15% of the adolescents and 53% of the older teens use AI tools for work. As older students have more complex assignments, there is more AI use among them.

The use of AI tools is getting more common in educational institutions with a German study showing that two thirds of the university students use AI tools for different purposes. 75% of the adolescents in Sweden use AI tools to structure their presentations, write analysis and for other studying purposes. But there should be a line drawn between what is cheating and what is just taking help from AI for studying. Many students copy entire assignments from AI tools which is considered cheating. If students are just using AI tools for getting ideas or for outlines, then it should be considered okay. Students and educators should also check for AI generated work as many academic papers have AI writing.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World