AI in Education: Student Perspectives from the USA and Brazil
“Perilous to us are all the devices of an art greater than we possess ourselves.” In everyday modern English, this sentence could be reworded as: “All the tools we are not experts in pose some danger to us.” The cautionary words from Tolkien’s character Gandalf, which refer to a magical instrument existent in the fictional world of Middle Earth, could well be applied to tech in our world.
When it comes to Artificial Intelligence, one only has to look for “dangers of AI” on Google to find plenty of material such as the Forbes article “The Biggest Risks Of Artificial Intelligence”, which lists fifteen risks created by the generalized use of AI. Seventh on the list is the danger of becoming too dependent on AI, which “may lead to a loss of creativity, critical thinking skills, and human intuition”.
This ushers in the main topic of this article. How have students been considering — and using — AI in their studies so far? Students, who are typically young human beings in the process of acquiring knowledge and developing precisely those faculties that the use of AI threatens. Students, those bold young people who will jump at the opportunity to explore a new tool, and use an AI paper writer mystylus.ai to help them with their academic papers…
This article investigates what is the perspective on the use of AI in education from students in the two most populous countries in the Americas — the United States and Brazil.
What about Brazil?
Not everyone living around Paso Robles is aware of this, but Brazil is a developed country and a huge adopter of tech in general. Brazilians use tech tools for all kinds of purposes, from the classical “ganhar dinheiro escrevendo reviews” (“making money writing product reviews”), to doing homework.
In a 2023 piece on the use of AI by students, the Brazilian newspaper Folha mentioned a young student who used AI “para gerar uma redação automática” — that is, to have his History composition assignment written for him:
Usei o ChatGPT porque eu tinha pouco tempo, então ele me ajudou no curto prazo. Mas nunca mais recorri à IA porque percebi que, além de mal escrito, o texto do ChatGPT ainda tinha erros conceituais básicos, ao nível de eu, mesmo sem ter estudado a fundo o conteúdo em questão, poder perceber.
“I used ChatGPT because I had little time, so it helped me with the short deadline. But I never resorted to AI again, because I realized that, besides being badly written, ChatGPT’s text had basic conceptual errors, to the point that I, who hadn’t really studied the content in depth, could see those errors.”
Another Brazilian news piece mentions a student who passed his university entry exam after having used ChatGPT as a study tool. He would ask ChatGPT to solve a problem step by step, and follow the process. But this student too realized results were not always precise, so he used other study strategies too, including writing his own text assignments.
What do US students use AI for in their homework?
In its 2023 State of AI in Education Report, educational platform Quizlet showed that American students use AI because they consider it helps them understand the material better, and study faster or more efficiently. The most common uses students have for AI tools are:
- Conduct research necessary for their homework (44%)
- Summarizing or synthesizing information (38%)
- Generating study guides or materials (33%)
Moreover, the Quizlet report shows that students who study more hours per day are more likely to use AI than those who study less. The report then quotes Maureen Lamb, Dean of Academic Technology and Innovative Pedagogy, at the Ethel Walker School: “It’s not the lazy students gravitating towards AI. Most students using AI are deeply invested in their learning experience.”
The information above confirms that it would be wrong to assume that any student using AI for study is cheating. What is more, it seems to point to awareness among students who use AI of the potential and pitfalls of this tech and seems also to indicate there’s method and efficiency in its use by the young people.
Is the use of AI by US and Brazilian students representative?
According to research mentioned in this article by University World News, only 20% of US higher education students say they use generative AI for their studies (and an ACT survey shows that the figure is about the same for high school students). Brazil is considerably higher, with over 30% responding affirmatively about AI use. Still, this is a low figure compared to the 62% of higher education students in Spain and Saudi Arabia, and the 63% in Kenya, who report having used AI tools to study.
These figures show that in early 2024, AI use by students still varies greatly from country to country. It must therefore be expected that other figures relative to the use of AI for studies are also greatly different from one country to the next and that the figures given for the United States and Brazil are not representative of any other reality but their own.
Are students using AI to evade their assignments?
So, why are those two out of ten American, and three out of ten Brazilian, students using AI in their studies? The inference may seem at first clear. Students are lazy, they don’t want to do their homework, so they gladly resort to AI tools to do it for them.
Facts, however, show this is not so. Only 10% of the 4,000 high school students who participated in the above-mentioned ACT survey said they would consider using an AI tool to write an assignment for them. Those who said they wouldn’t listed a number of reasons why:
- Fear of negative consequences
- Considering it is dishonest
- Bad writing from the AI too
- A poor reflection of their own writing style
But if so many students are not using AI because they want to evade writing their assignments, why are they using those tools — and what exactly for?
What do students want as regards AI?
The University World News piece shows that 65% of the over 11,000 students who took part in the survey worldwide said they would like their curriculum to “include training in AI tools that could be relevant to their future careers”.
In Brazil, this figure is even higher, as 73% of students responding to the Google survey cited by Folha said they think it’s important that “learning institutions invest time and money in new technology, including artificial intelligence”.
Why don’t all students use AI?
So far, we’ve looked at those 20-30% percent of students who do use AI for their homework. What about the majority — why don’t those 70% use AI?
Many, like the Brazilian student, find that the AI content is inaccurate, and no longer trust the information the tool provides. Other reasons include:
- Lack of interest in AI tools
- Not knowing enough about them
- Considering the use of AI tools immoral or unethical
- Being willing to do the work and not seeing the need to use AI tools
A perilous tech?
From the research carried out so far, students in the United States and Brazil don’t seem to be unaware of the risks posed by AI. Some choose to stay safe by refusing to use it altogether, while many who do use it do so with purpose and strategy.
AI does have its dangers for anyone who does not master it, but there’s reason to hope that the critical thinking skills, creativity, and intuition of most students are not in immediate danger from artificial intelligence.
Sources
Ferreira, D. (2024, February 9). Estudante de escola pública que usou IA para estudar passa para engenharia da computação. Move Notícias. https://movenoticias.com.br/estudante-de-escola-publica-que-usou-ia-para-estudar-passa-para-engenharia-da-computacao/
Franco, M. (2023, July 21). Três em cada dez alunos já usaram inteligência artificial, diz pesquisa do Google. Folha De S.Paulo. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folhateen/2023/07/tres-em-cada-dez-alunos-ja-usaram-inteligencia-artificial-diz-pesquisa-do-google.shtml
Half of High School Students Already Use AI Tools. (2023, December 11). ACT. https://leadershipblog.act.org/2023/12/students-ai-research.html
Manyukwe, C. (n.d.). 40% of students have used AI in their studies – Survey. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231128122611248
Marr, B. (2023, June 2). The 15 Biggest Risks Of Artificial Intelligence. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/06/02/the-15-biggest-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/
Quizlet. (2023, July 24). Quizlet’s State of AI in Education Survey Reveals Teachers Are Surprise AI Champions. PRNewswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/quizlets-state-of-ai-in-education-survey-reveals-teachers-are-surprise-ai-champions-301884427.html
