How Are Students Using AI?

Republished with permission from Annette Vee and The Norton Newsletter. Is "everyone" really "cheating their way through college" as the recent New York Magazine article claims? The stories James D. Walsh tells of students skipping out on reading, writing, coding, and pretty much all of the intellectual work of college make for a good viral article. But what does the data say about student uses of AI?

Student data tells us a more complicated story. For example, from my own study team's work talking to students across four of the University of Pittsburgh campuses, I learned that: (1) students often think they know about AI because they're users of AI; (2) students need more examples of what productive AI use could be because most of them are finding uses on their own—not all of which seem great; (3) most faculty have no idea how prevalent, varied, and complex AI use is among students, and students sense that gap.