Students are increasingly using generative AI (GenAI) tools, particularly ChatGPT, in their everyday studies, with many perceiving them as valuable resources that integrate into their academic routines. A significant proportion of students, including 60% in one study, use the programme for more than half of their written homework assignments. In a survey at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, nearly two-thirds of students used ChatGPT more than three times a week, and 96% reported using AI tools in their studies. Here’s how students leverage tools like ChatGPT.
Supporting learning
- Personalised tutoring and feedback
- ChatGPT can serve as a virtual tutor, providing personalised tutoring and feedback based on individual learning needs and progress. A study by Chen and colleagues (2020) demonstrated its effectiveness in providing tailored math tutoring, leading to improved learning outcomes and explanations adjusted to student misconceptions.
- Students value AI’s ability to offer immediate answers and feedback on assignments and general queries. This instant support is seen as a key driver for use, helping to overcome uncertainties and providing reassurance, especially when traditional support is unavailable, acting as a “24/7 teacher”.
- Students report feeling comfortable asking anything freely to ChatGPT without feeling judged, which can be a significant benefit over interacting with teachers or friends.
- It can provide customised recommendations and feedback on finished homework to deepen thinking and understanding.
- For language learning, it provides interactive conversations, real-time feedback, and adaptive learning experiences, leading to improved language proficiency. This includes generating short texts for memorising words and enhancing conversational skills. Students have also humanized ChatGPT, treating it as a “study buddy” or “super friend” for social learning and communication practice.
- Students often seek in-depth content explanations from ChatGPT. It can simplify complex concepts and philosophical ideas into simpler language, making challenging topics more accessible.
- It offers simulation-styled practice and can even generate detailed clinical scenarios and related multiple-choice questions (MCQs), which is valuable for medical students.
- Enhancing cognitive skills (with caveats)
- ChatGPT has shown potential to promote critical thinking skills through interactive conversations that prompt students to analyse information and consider diverse viewpoints. However, sources also note concerns that over-reliance might hinder critical thinking and problem-solving, leading to “cognitive offloading” or “metacognitive laziness”.
- It can help in problem-solving by simplifying complex theories, breaking down tasks, and generating alternative solutions.
- Students also report that ChatGPT can provide unique insights and perspectives that they might not have thought of themselves.
- The studies showed that AI-driven feedback in flipped classrooms helped students develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities by offering immediate, personalized insights and resources.
- Self-directed learning
- GenAI tools encourage students to ask questions, clarify their needs, and delve into various topics as part of a self-regulated learning approach .
Solving tasks and academic processes
- Research and information gathering
- ChatGPT is used as a search engine substitute and can facilitate literature searching, summarise readings, and even generate hypotheses based on data analysis.
- It helps in clarifying concepts and questions related to course materials.
- Students use it to find solutions to problems faster and to brainstorm starting points for assignments.
- Assessment support
- Students use GenAI for concept checking and exam preparation. It can generate practice questions similar to those students struggle with, supporting iterative learning and self-assessment.
- ChatGPT can assist in generating quizzes and scenarios for student assessment for instructors, which indirectly supports student preparation.
- While some studies show GenAI can help students pass exams or score higher, others report no improvement or even lower performance, especially in more complex tasks. There are concerns that it may lead to students bypassing necessary learning processes.
- Managing academic workload
- Students widely believe GenAI helps them save time and reduce mental effort.
- It assists with homework and assignments, with one study indicating almost 90% of students use it for homework. It can decompose complex tasks into manageable segments.
- Students have justified using GenAI to deal with stringent deadlines and course requirements, reducing academic pressure and stress.
Creating texts and content
- Academic writing and content generation
- ChatGPT is extensively used as a writing assistant across various stages, including planning, drafting, and revising.
- Students value it for overcoming uncertainties, clarifying vocabulary, and offering content suggestions that enhance essay quality.
- It provides feedback on grammar and word selection, helps structure sentences and paragraphs, and suggests alternative sentence structures, significantly enhancing the overall quality of essays.
- Students use it to generate ideas while writing and to produce first drafts before refining their responses.
- It can summarise lengthy documents, articles, books, and videos.
- For students with learning and language disabilities or non-native speakers, ChatGPT’s ability to provide simple responses and accurate translations is particularly useful.
- Creative content and problem-solving
- Students have expressed that AI tools can be creative allies, assisting in creative visual story writing and generating diverse ideas.
- ChatGPT can help in generating code, fixing bugs, and explaining coding logic, speeding up debugging processes and offering detailed explanations for errors.
- It can generate lesson plans (for pre-service teachers) and even poetry.