Argus Poll: Estimating A.I. Usage by High School Students
Our respondents estimated that 70% of high school students use A.I. to do their homework for them. Art: Yan Chen
By THE ARGUS STAFF
Since 2022, millions of students have tried using artificial intelligence (A.I.) apps such as ChatGPT to help them with their schoolwork. While these apps can be used in legitimate ways, such as to explain difficult concepts in simpler language or quickly find good sources for research, they can also be used to take short cuts on assignments -- in other words, to do students' work for them.
We were wondering how widespread A.I. usage had become in high school, so we asked over 200 Midwood students from a mix of grade levels to estimate what percentage of high schoolers in general they thought were using A.I. for a variety of purposes. (We did not ask the students about their own personal behavior.) We hoped that James Surowiecki’s theory about the “wisdom of crowds” would help us achieve an accurate estimate.
Based on the median responses in our survey, our respondents estimated that, amongst high school students in general:
About 70% of teens use A.I. to research information for essays or other projects
About 70% of teens use A.I. to to do some or all of their homework assignments for them
About 70% of teens use A.I. to help them study or better understand class materials
About 60% of teens use A.I. to help them structure or outline an essay (or other writing assignment)
About 50% of teens use A.I. to write some or all of their essays for them
To repeat, these numbers are based on teens’ guesses about the general American high school population, and it is possible that their impressions of others’ behavior could overstate or understate reality. That said, our poll seems to confirm what other studies have suggested: that A.I. use in education has quickly become widespread, both for legitimate and illegitimate purposes. How schools, colleges, and students adapt over the coming years may change the face of education as we know it.