No the test is not training, that’s a weird thing to claim. The switch is what is tested, and you disregard that 2 other tests have shown similar results. An actual decline in critical and problem solving thinking.
The switch is what is being tested yes, but it is not clear that what is being measured in the switch is “AI fried their brains” rather than “context switching in the middle of a test”. If they wanted to make that point it would be useful to have the maths test run with a calculator group who also got it yanked halfway through, that way we would be able to see what proportion of the effect is over dependence on AI removing critical thinking and what amount is having your methods disrupted mid task.
The calculator test might be good for comparison, and I’m pretty sure if given the same amount of time, and one group being allowed to use calculator for half the test, that group would solidly outperform a group not using calculators at all.
I was in 5th grade in 1975, and we were the first class to get calculators in 5th grade. Which became the standard for many years after.
I have never heard complaints about students being less capable of understanding basic math problems because they use calculators. Although the idea of using calculators in schools were heavily debated. It’s similar to people not getting worse at spelling from using a dictionary.
This paper shows that a person who has performed a task 12 times performs better than a person who has never performed the same task.
They also do not properly control for performance loss due to context switching which is a well known contributor to performance loss.
It’s a paper on arXiv, it hasn’t been peer reviewed or published.
No the test is not training, that’s a weird thing to claim. The switch is what is tested, and you disregard that 2 other tests have shown similar results. An actual decline in critical and problem solving thinking.
Not training, no, but warm up. And no, it is not about critical thinking, it’s about reading comprehension and calculations.
The switch is what is being tested yes, but it is not clear that what is being measured in the switch is “AI fried their brains” rather than “context switching in the middle of a test”. If they wanted to make that point it would be useful to have the maths test run with a calculator group who also got it yanked halfway through, that way we would be able to see what proportion of the effect is over dependence on AI removing critical thinking and what amount is having your methods disrupted mid task.
The calculator test might be good for comparison, and I’m pretty sure if given the same amount of time, and one group being allowed to use calculator for half the test, that group would solidly outperform a group not using calculators at all.
I was in 5th grade in 1975, and we were the first class to get calculators in 5th grade. Which became the standard for many years after.
I have never heard complaints about students being less capable of understanding basic math problems because they use calculators. Although the idea of using calculators in schools were heavily debated. It’s similar to people not getting worse at spelling from using a dictionary.