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.
This is ridiculous. The world doesn’t have to bend the knee to LLMs, they’re supposed to be useful tools to solve problems.
And I don’t see why asking them to help with math problems would be unreasonable.
And even if the formulation of the test was not done the right way, your argument is still invalid. LLMs were being used as an aid. The test wasn’t given to the LLM directly. But students failed to use the tool to their advantage.
This is yet another hint that the grift doesn’t actually serve people.
Another thing these bullshit machines can’t do! The list is getting pretty long.
About the calculator argument… Well, the calculator is still used in class, because it makes sense in certain contexts. But nobody ever sold calculators saying they would teach you math and would be a do-everything machine.