AI’s Behavioral Impact on Learning & Student Behavior is a growing focus as AI has made education more modern and easier than ever. It has also changed the way students learn. The impact can be seen in the way students can get answers to their questions in seconds, saving time and improving outcomes. But the question is, what are the disadvantages and advantages of AI when it is used excessively? If it is used excessively, the ability to think and research is affected. Some studies show that while AI provides immediate help, it can also affect students’ memory, creativity, and deep understanding.
How has AI changed students' learning behavior?
AI has completely changed our world. It has made many things easy which we used to solve with difficulty before. And solves our problems in seconds.
If we study deeply, many things come to our attention, many of which are positive but some things also lead us to negative. There are many concerns that AI has changed the attitudes of students towards learning, students are starting to rely on AI instead of doing research on their own, taking help from tools, but AI answers are not as solid as students get a solid answer after doing research because they find the answers themselves after doing thorough research and reading different books.
Relying on shortcut answers from AI weakens students in terms of research and thought processes. Students do not use their brains as much as they should.
Two recent studies provide clear examples of this, one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and the other from the University of Pennsylvania (UPennium) and the combined effects on learning behavior. Results
Behavioral impact of overreliance on AI
When we talk about the way students learn, a simple thought comes to mind:
If we were there, which path would we take? Obviously, we would also try to take the easy path. Similarly, students are also doing the same because AI gives quick and easy answers quickly. So students are also choosing this shortcut. The disadvantage of this is that instead of stressing the brain, students are getting answers with less effort, due to which their learning ability is weakening. Due to less effort, their knowledge is weakening. They are not able to accumulate as much knowledge.
The other disadvantage of this is that students are becoming more relaxed and do not prefer hard work, which can create more complications in their lives in the coming days. This is because of the maximum use of AI facilities and preferring shortcuts. The thinking muscles of students are weakening due to less effort.Two recent studies have further strengthened this idea, which has emerged based on experiments.
The MIT Study: Memory and Behavioral Brain Activity
MIT researchers designed an experiment to observe these behavioral patterns with 54 participants, divided into three equal groups of eighteen students. Each group was asked to write different essays . One group was tasked with writing articles using only ChatGPT and was not allowed to use anything else. Another group used the search engine Google and was not allowed to use any LLM. A third group had no digital help neither LLMs nor search engines and relied entirely on their own academic skills to write the essay. Each of the three groups completed three sessions under the same conditions, with electroencephalography (EEG) used to monitor and record their brain activity during the writing session. In a subsequent fourth session, group tasks were reversed. Those who used ChatGPT for the first three sessions were asked to write using only their brains. While the group who had previously written without any digital tools, were instructed to write their essays using ChatGPT. Results were evaluated by both human and AI judges.
Observations made about this research approach: MIT researchers concluded that essays written with AI were more grammatically polished and well-structured, but often lacked originality and creativity. The group that did not rely on any digital tool had more clarity in their essays. This indicates a difference in creative behavior. A surprising behavioral result was that students who used the LLMs barely remembered anything, even though they were able to say only a few things they had forgotten during the interview after the task they had completed. This phenomenon has been called 'cognitive alienation'.
EEG data provided an explanation for this memory void: Their brains simply weren't encoding the information efficiently because they weren't processing the material to learn. ChatGPT users showed weaker activity in parts of their brains associated with attention and critical thinking. These are important cognitive behaviors to learn. In contrast, those who relied on their brains demonstrated ownership over their work. They developed the mental scaffolding required to write an essay, which involves more cognitive load than most ChatGPT users resort to copy-paste behavior. The test group limited to using Google showed a moderate degree of brain activity, while the results of the Google-dependent group were slightly better than the group using ChatGPT or similar tools, but they lacked polish, i.e. they could not polish or shine the content in the same way that the group using ChatGPT or such tools polished their articles beautifully but included some academic content and research. It was slightly better than the BT ones
The UPN Study: Copying Behavior versus Learning Behavior
The University of Pennsylvania conducted an experiment in a high school in Turkey to understand what Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can teach children better math. The experiment involved about 1,000 students who were randomly divided into three groups, and each group was taught differently in four class sessions.
The first group, called the control group, of course Traditional methods Read from: They were given only textbooks and no AI support provided. Their goal was to see how performance would be if no advanced tools were used.
The second group He was the one who Standard ChatGPT Like using an AI tool. This tool was named "GPT-Base". The students in this group talked to the AI just like we ask a question and it answers directly. The approach was to find out what effect children have on their learning speed and performance when given a simple AI tool that can easily answer problems.
The third and most important group used "GPT-Tutor", a AI designed like a special tutor was The special feature of this AI was that it children Doesn't give a straight answer Was, rather like a good teacher hints used to give and them to reach the solution of the problem themselves guidance used to It also included safeguards so that children could not copy easily. The main purpose of the research was to compare the performance of these three groups: to see which group scored better immediately and more importantly, After removing AI Which group learned things longer? remember have kept
Behavioral outcomes of learning Instant Performance: When AI was with The results are surprising good were When students Immediately Given the test and allowed to use AI, both AI groups performed conventionally Textbook group performed much better than In particular, the group that general GPT-Base used, they from textbook children 48 percent higher Get better scores. But GPT-Tutor The children who used it did wonders; Their score compared to textbook children 127 percent higher was This showed that AI is a powerful helper which can quickly help children solve difficult questions quickly.
Retention of knowledge: When AI is removed Original and Reversed result It came out when the children AI support withdrawn And they were tested again. Here, the result of a group using normal GPT-Base damaged turned out They compared the textbook group 17 percent worse Performed. It means that with the help of AI they were getting good marks, but they actually Don't learn had been On the other hand, the group using GPT-Tutor absolutely Textbook group stood equal to Although their improvement was not spectacular, at least they did something intact kept what they had learned.
The result of children reading only from books So these were the kids who didn't use any AI, just relied on their old textbooks. In fact, these were the basis on which the remaining two groups were compared. Immediately when the test was done and the other groups got AI support, these book kids lagged behind. Simply put, you can't compete with a book as fast as you can with a smart computer helping out. But the real fun came when after a few days the AI was withdrawn from everyone. Here children who only read books proved to be strong at once. Children with this book scored higher than the children who were copying using the normal ChatGPT. And the group that used the really learning "Teacher AI", these kids stood right up to them! This made it clear that while AI is great for immediate help, for long-term memorization, reading traditional books is also a good and sustainable way, especially with this simulated AI.
The reason for the reversal: replication and the illusion of self-esteem This strange result came about because both AI groups Procedure was different. GPT-Base Child users were lazy; They actually solve the problem themselves the effort Not just doing it, but only with AI Complete answer They used to ask for it and copy it. Because of this, when there was no AI On your tail Couldn't solve anything. The surprising thing was that one of the group "The Illusion of Learning" Also had: When asked before the test, he Absolutely sure It was believed that he was improving and that his performance would be outstanding, although the actual results proved that he was only one Misunderstanding were victims of
Conclusion
All these observations revealed that AI changes our learning behavior in various ways. If AI is used to solve problems and try to learn from them, like a teacher, something can be improved, then this is a positive aspect and a good learning behavior. On the other hand, if you try to get answers by asking it, it is like copying, which gives an immediate answer and students write it down, then the answers are obtained immediately, but the learning process is affected a lot. So AI is not a bad thing, but if it is used to the extent required, it can improve many things and children can learn better and organize better. Because AI also tells us how to solve many problems The third thing that comes to us is that if the students do their own research and try to get knowledge from books and try to remember it, it is much better because it stresses the brain and remembers things for a longer period of time.
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