ChatGPT "Improves" Critical Thinking in Kids...But Not Really
From Actual Intelligence with Steve Pearlman by Steve Pearlman, Ph.D.
December 9, 2025 · 2 min
About this episode
The episode discusses a study on how ChatGPT affects critical thinking in students, revealing that perceived flaws in AI outputs may actually enhance critical thinking skills.
📍 📍 📍 think. This study found some evidence for enhancing critical thinking through the use of ChatGBT. The researchers followed 25 students as they wrote essays with the assistance of ChatGPT. Afterwards, students reported gains in critical thinking, system thinking, and strategic competence. That sounds great, right? Well, the devil is in the details. Toward the end of the report, the researchers casually mention something that’s actually crucial. “It should be noted that the students associated AI’s effect on critical thinking with its imperfection-- the perceived need to reformulate their question or to verify the obtained response, lacking the necessary depth. In other words, because ChatGPT’s outputs were so flawed and often incorrect, the students had to think more to make sense of them and about how to use AI at all. So, saying that using chat GPT improved their critical thinking is like saying that driving a car increased their automotive knowledge. Except, it wasn’t driving the car that increased their knowledge. It was that it kept breaking down and they learned automotive knowledge because they had to keep repairing it. So beware of how your kids are using AI, as…
People in this episode
Host: Steve Pearlman
Topics covered
- critical thinking
- AI
- education
- ChatGPT
- student learning
Keywords
- ChatGPT
- critical thinking
- education
- AI
- student essays
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Actual Intelligence, Substack
Products: ChatGPT
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