How AI Impacts Academic Thinking, Writing and Learning

Key points

Over-reliance on AI risks eroding students’ knowledge and skill development through reduced cognitive effort.

In writing tasks, findings suggests that students primarily prompt ChatGPT for data, facts, and information.

Educators need activity designs that encourage questioning and verification rather than blind AI acceptance.

Co-authored by Xiaoyan Dong, Hannah Farrell, and Michael Hogan.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how we learn and develop knowledge and skills. With the development of AI, more and more students in higher education are using AI like ChatGPT to assist them in completing their assignments. But how do students and AI collaborate in academic tasks? What are the key interaction patterns and dynamics shaping learning?

Researchers Deng et a