ChatGPT linked to declining academic performance and memory loss in new study

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“While the discussion on generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, is making waves in academia and the popular press, there is a need for more insight into the use of ChatGPT among students and the potential harmful or beneficial consequences associated with its usage. Using samples from two studies, the current research examined the causes and consequences of ChatGPT usage among university students. Study 1 developed and validated an eight-item scale to measure ChatGPT usage by conducting a survey among university students (N = 165). Study 2 used a three-wave time-lagged design to collect data from university students (N = 494) to further validate the scale and test the study’s hypotheses. Study 2 also examined the effects of academic workload, academic time pressure, sensitivity to rewards, and sensitivity to quality on ChatGPT usage. Study 2 further examined the effects of ChatGPT usage on students’ levels of procrastination, memory loss, and academic performance. Study 1 provided evidence for the validity and reliability of the ChatGPT usage scale. Furthermore, study 2 revealed that when students faced higher academic workload and time pressure, they were more likely to use ChatGPT. In contrast, students who were sensitive to rewards were less likely to use ChatGPT. Not surprisingly, use of ChatGPT was likely to develop tendencies for procrastination and memory loss and dampen the students’ academic performance. Finally, academic workload, time pressure, and sensitivity to rewards had indirect effects on students’ outcomes through ChatGPT usage.”

Source: https://www.psypost.org/chatgpt-lin...mic-performance-and-memory-loss-in-new-study/
 
I keep hearing ads for grammarly(?) talking about how it can write the papers for you and do your citations so you never have to learn how. Like, I thought that was the point of going to school?
 
Memory loss? What does that even mean in this context? I'm sure it's not that if I use chatgpt I forget what I had for lunch yesterday, right?

I'm going to take this with a grain-silo of salt.
 
LigTasm said:
I keep hearing ads for grammarly(?) talking about how it can write the papers for you and do your citations so you never have to learn how. Like, I thought that was the point of going to school?
Click to expand...
Well to be fair the ultimate goal from college is to be specialized in a singular subject, but ever the money grubbing institutions that they are you are forced to take classes in no way related to your subject all to make you a "better rounded student". If I wanted to be a better rounded student I would take an undecided major like liberal arts or something like that. I went to school for physics, to learn physics, but the way things are set up for a 4 year degree you need to take almost 2 years of classes unrelated to your major, and I'm not talking needing to take math classes as a physics major I'm talking about taking humanities, English, social studies, history, etc, or as my European friends used to mock me for "Oh you mean the stuff you should have learned in high school" YES! That stuff that I DID learn in high school, but I have to take it all again for some reason. Now this is was a good 30+ years ago (damn I feel old) before metoo, blm, hell before even 9/11, so I'm sure it's just as bad today.
 
I'd have to look closely at the study, but I have to say that this is perhaps more of a change of measurement metrics than an absolute lessening of memory or performance. I seem to remember that the same was said of many other things, sky-falling style, in the past that have been incorporated into education now including the loss of the abacus and/or slide rule, the calculator, open-book testing, research using the Internet ( Wikipedia is a big specific site, among a handful of specific engines like LexisNexis or NCBI etc), and of course - spell check! If you tested for methodology meant for the 'old way' awhile after the "new way" was available, you had all sorts of doomsaying that the kids weren't learning anything because they had calculators or formula sheets or whatnot, but none of it turned out to be true. Rather, education adapted to the tools available and the cycle continued for the most part.

Now, there are some edge cases of outmoded structures that we don't seem to dedicate as much time to anymore, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing - consider cursive handwriting. I learned it, but many younger people with kids tell me that, aside from certain (often considered stodgy - a handful of coastal prepatory schools, after school calligraphy programs etc) venues, its no longer a standard subject. Someone COULD claim that "kids can't even write anymore!" but that isn't accurate either - they earn block printing which is more legible anyway, and typing is almost a given (though I have heard that the generation growing up with touchscreen everything and predictive input is less capable with a full on keyboard but that's another discussion). Kids who want to learn cursive script or calligraphy (or for that matter, most seem to be learning calligraphy for use in other languages, notably East Asian ones) can do so elsewhere, but there are so many things that are more pertinent to a general foundational education than a style of handwriting that if anthing but mastered, is far less ledgible than printing, is slower and cumbersome if not using a proper sort of pen, and is going to be outmoded for typing for their assignments going foward. So ultimately this isn't a new phenomena necessarily, it has lots of precedent.
 
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I'd prefer the original article/source that conducted the study - not a journalists point of view.

https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-024-00444-7

TLDR:

1711465723592.png
 
LigTasm said:
I keep hearing ads for grammarly(?) talking about how it can write the papers for you and do your citations so you never have to learn how. Like, I thought that was the point of going to school?
Click to expand...
Proper citation is the foundation of society, right?

The real issue, and the one faced by business, is the lack of thinking and reasoning these tools allow. But, that's college these days. When your grades depend on regurgitation of the information fed to you by academics, these tools will be useful to large groups of modern students seeking paper credentials. Make sure you feed it your lecture notes, which can be taken by AI and the right AI note taking tool can join virtual classes for you, if you are unable to attend.

Same holds true for business. There are many, many using these tools to punch above their intellectual weight class. But, as long as they can spell, use complete sentences and cite correctly it's all good.
 
LigTasm said:
I keep hearing ads for grammarly(?) talking about how it can write the papers for you and do your citations so you never have to learn how. Like, I thought that was the point of going to school?
Click to expand...

The point of school is to give us the basic skills needed to function in society and be good productive citizens.

Over time, based on technology, the skill set this required changes. Learning things like cursive becomes less important, and it becomes more important to know how to type.

If proper citation can be done for us, that is great!

AI may help with lots of these things in the future, but we need to become better at separating the substance from that which is purely transactional. Let AI do the purely transactional stuff (provided it can be validated to get it right with a high degree of certainty). The substantive stuff should still always be done by humans.

That doesn't mean we should completely disregard learning it though. We still study basic math despite the fact that we all have calculators, because it helps to understand how it works when you apply it, even if you can get a machine to do it effort you. It also helps to have a sanity check to help spot when something is wrong, and catch it and fix it.

We shouldn't just blindly trust these technologies. By all means, use AI to help, as long as you have the knowledge and discipline to thoroughly vet the output.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well to be fair the ultimate goal from college is to be specialized in a singular subject, but ever the money grubbing institutions that they are you are forced to take classes in no way related to your subject all to make you a "better rounded student". If I wanted to be a better rounded student I would take an undecided major like liberal arts or something like that. I went to school for physics, to learn physics, but the way things are set up for a 4 year degree you need to take almost 2 years of classes unrelated to your major, and I'm not talking needing to take math classes as a physics major I'm talking about taking humanities, English, social studies, history, etc, or as my European friends used to mock me for "Oh you mean the stuff you should have learned in high school" YES! That stuff that I DID learn in high school, but I have to take it all again for some reason. Now this is was a good 30+ years ago (damn I feel old) before metoo, blm, hell before even 9/11, so I'm sure it's just as bad today.
Click to expand...
Yeah, we need vo-tech schools for STEM fields. The traditional 4 year thing is outdated.

And HS graduation requirements are so low there is no way to tell the LCD. 6th to 8th grade educations in some foreign countries equates to HS here.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well to be fair the ultimate goal from college is to be specialized in a singular subject, but ever the money grubbing institutions that they are you are forced to take classes in no way related to your subject all to make you a "better rounded student".
Click to expand...

Specialized in a subject, yes. But still able to string together a coherent sentence without help from a fucking AI. Isn't that the hallmark of an educated person throughout the ages? Being literate and able to communicate effectively is the basic standard regardless of what major you went for.
 
Our big brains exist because of evolutionary pressure. If we relieve that pressure by having AI do all the thinking for us, then yeah, we're going to get dumber. It's very much a "use it or lose it" thing. Mother Nature is under no obligation to prevent our minds from atrophying.
 
The study showed that time pressure caused memory loss as well, not sure how well the design was to distinguish correlation and causation, and even more so actual memory loss, they asked question like: Nowadays, I can’t retain too much in my mind and used the answer....

It would be the ultimate version, of a google and reading a screen is not the same experience than physical book in a library on steroid for sure.
 
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wareyore said:
Yeah, we need vo-tech schools for STEM fields. The traditional 4 year thing is outdated.
Click to expand...

I disagree.

From the perspective of "does it prepare me for the workforce" sure. Many of the things you learn in college are useless for that.

But there is more to higher education than just workforce training.

The original charter of the "liberal arts education" had nothing to do with preparing people for the workforce. It was instead intending to help form and broaden the minds of young men into more worldly beings, exposing them to the arts and teaching them things like philosophy and literature - theory of knowledge if you will - to give them the tools to navigate the world with proper context and become better leaders of men.

As founding father John Adams wrote in 1780:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

Society benefits when the more people have this type of education. It tends to reduce small-mindedness and prejudice, and increase knowledge and understanding, and generally lead to a more beautiful and livable society.

Of course, when that liberal arts education costs you a minimum of $35k a year for 4 years, it becomes really tough to justify if you are not a gilded age elite who comes from money this system was created for, if it does not provide some sort of serious ROI in the form of workforce preparedness, and that aspect of it has definitely not kept pace with the cost in the last 25 years or so.

I used to chafe at my literature and other "general education" requirements as a waste of time and money back when I was in high school on a STEM academic track and in college for engineering, but in retrospect I greatly value those experiences for the more worldly and open minded person they have made me, and know I would not be the person I am today if I didn't have them. I wish everyone could benefit from these experiences.
 
TL;DR I grabbed the full list of survey questions and topics. And they could answer 1: Never - 6: always

  1. Workload (Peterson et al., 1995)
    1. My academic workload is too heavy
    2. I feel overloaded by the work my studies require
    3. I feel overburdened due to my studies
    4. The teacher(s) give too much work to do
  2. Time pressure (Dapkus, 1985)
    1. I don’t have enough time to prepare for my class projects
    2. I don’t have enough time to complete study-related tasks with appropriate care
    3. I find it difficult to submit my assignments and projects within the deadlines
    4. I am often in hurry when it comes to meeting academic deadlines
  3. Sensitivity to rewards
    1. I am worried about my CGPA
    2. I am concerned about my semester grades
  4. Sensitivity to quality
    1. I am concerned about the quality of my course projects
    2. I am sensitive about the quality of my course assignments
  5. Use of ChatGPT
    1. I use ChatGPT for my academic activities
    2. I use ChatGPT to prepare for my tests or quizzes
    3. I use ChatGPT for my course projects
    4. I use ChatGPT to learn course-related concepts
    5. I rely on ChatGPT for my studies
    6. I use ChatGPT for my course assignments
    7. I am addicted to ChatGPT when it comes to studies
    8. ChatGPT is part of my campus life
  6. Procrastination (Choi & Moran, 2009)
    1. I often fail to accomplish goals that I set for myself
    2. I’m often running late when getting things done
    3. I often start things at the last minute and find it difficult to complete them on time
    4. I have difficulty finishing activities once I start them
  7. Memory loss
    1. Nowadays, I often forget things to do
    2. Nowadays, I can’t retain too much in my mind
    3. Nowadays, I feel that I am losing my memory
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I disagree.

From the perspective of "does it prepare me for the workforce" sure. Many of the things you learn in college are useless for that.

But there is more to higher education than just workforce training.

The original charter of the "liberal arts education" had nothing to do with preparing people for the workforce. It was instead intending to help form and broaden the minds of young men into more worldly beings, exposing them to the arts and teaching them things like philosophy and literature - theory of knowledge if you will - to give them the tools to navigate the world with proper context and become better leaders of men.

As founding father John Adams wrote in 1780:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

Society benefits when the more people have this type of education. It tends to reduce small-mindedness and prejudice, and increase knowledge and understanding, and generally lead to a more beautiful and livable society.

Of course, when that liberal arts education costs you a minimum of $35k a year for 4 years, it becomes really tough to justify if you are not a gilded age elite who comes from money this system was created for, if it does not provide some sort of serious ROI in the form of workforce preparedness, and that aspect of it has definitely not kept pace with the cost in the last 25 years or so.

I used to chafe at my literature and other "general education" requirements as a waste of time and money back when I was in high school on a STEM academic track and in college for engineering, but in retrospect I greatly value those experiences for the more worldly and open minded person they have made me, and know I would not be the person I am today if I didn't have them. I wish everyone could benefit from these experiences.
Click to expand...
While I agree with this on a conceptual level, it is important to realize that the average person has the opportunity (note just opportunity, it doesn't mean inclination, quality etc...) to get that kind of exposure in ways that don't require sitting in a classroom with other upper-crust elites, and the monetization and ROI issue has become the problem. Like everything else, the system needs to evolve - we can't keep insisting that people have to spend 30-130K to get an increasingly low level of entry into society as undergrad educated, when most of those majors don't convey anything to prepare you for a job and in fact enslave you to paying off the loan-based sword of damocles over your head; I won't even get into the issue that student loan debt can be bought and sold, NOT discharged by bankruptcy, AND the moment you default on many types the gov't instantly PAYS IT OFF, BUT THE LOAN HOLDER CAN STILL COLLECT THE FULL AMOUNT FROM YOU!

The system is broken increasingly and is not serving any purpose. A century ago the almost only way to have the kind of exposure to learned concepts was the resources of a university, to sit among an discuss with other priviledged, learned people Today, that's not the case. You can listen a MIT lecture from your room, audit the entire Carnagie-Mellon computer science course on OS development, Khan Academy and others give massive exposure , and of course just plain YouTube, SciHub, and other repositories of media. This SHOULD be enightening if it happened the way that we all read about in science fiction where there was a global network or an "akashic record" repository or some such, but clearly it has not gone that way for a number of reasons - not the least of which is because of the monetization of the system has a vested interest in getting you to pay to be certified - college costs more than ever, gives you less than ever etc... but maintains a near monopoly on being able to say who are the haves vs the have nots from an academic setting. Someone who can afford to breeze through college on their parents money, sleep through everything and come out with a degree is seen as more valid to hire than someone who maybe knows the concepts backward and forward, but had to study themselves in their off hours bagging groceries to help an ailing family member financially. That has become its value just as much as anything having to do with legacy admissions or whatnot, its paying to be deemed "the right sort, or at least in the proximity of them".

There are others issues as well, such as how someone studying alone may spend hours watching flat earth truther proof instead, but lets not say that going to college itself keeps people away from misinformation, spread inside or out. I agree that exposure to other information, new ways of thinking, critical analysis and just plain other people and their viewpoints is usually beneficial, but the system that we have is basically designed for a number of reason to put a massively high cost to expecting that comes at the hand of an expensive university education, when we have better opportunities. There are many problems to solve in relation, but realizing that trying to maintain the old paradigm of some educational ideal, ivy-wrapped and nostalgia coated, is more harmful than beneficial under the current circumstances. Times have changed, the posibility for exposure to knoweldge and people have changed, but forces that benefit from the old way keep trying to stuff it all back into the box for their own profit.
 
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RanceJustice said:
While I agree with this on a conceptual level, it is important to realize that the average person has the opportunity (note just opportunity, it doesn't mean inclination, quality etc...) to get that kind of exposure in ways that don't require sitting in a classroom with other upper-crust elites, and the monetization and ROI issue has become the problem. Like everything else, the system needs to evolve - we can't keep insisting that people have to spend 30-130K to get an increasingly low level of entry into society as undergrad educated, when most of those majors don't convey anything to prepare you for a job and in fact enslave you to paying off the loan-based sword of damocles over your head; I won't even get into the issue that student loan debt can be bought and sold, NOT discharged by bankruptcy, AND the moment you default on many types the gov't instantly PAYS IT OFF, BUT THE LOAN HOLDER CAN STILL COLLECT THE FULL AMOUNT FROM YOU!

The system is broken increasingly and is not serving any purpose. A century ago the almost only way to have the kind of exposure to learned concepts was the resources of a university, to sit among an discuss with other priviledged, learned people Today, that's not the case. You can listen a MIT lecture from your room, audit the entire Carnagie-Mellon computer science course on OS development, Khan Academy and others give massive exposure , and of course just plain YouTube, SciHub, and other repositories of media. This SHOULD be enightening if it happened the way that we all read about in science fiction where there was a global network or an "akashic record" repository or some such, but clearly it has not gone that way for a number of reasons - not the least of which is because of the monetization of the system has a vested interest in getting you to pay to be certified - college costs more than ever, gives you less than ever etc... but maintains a near monopoly on being able to say who are the haves vs the have nots from an academic setting. Someone who can afford to breeze through college on their parents money, sleep through everything and come out with a degree is seen as more valid to hire than someone who maybe knows the concepts backward and forward, but had to study themselves in their off hours bagging groceries to help an ailing family member financially. That has become its value just as much as anything having to do with legacy admissions or whatnot, its paying to be deemed "the right sort, or at least in the proximity of them".

There are others issues as well, such as how someone studying alone may spend hours watching flat earth truther proof instead, but lets not say that going to college itself keeps people away from misinformation, spread inside or out. I agree that exposure to other information, new ways of thinking, critical analysis and just plain other people and their viewpoints is usually beneficial, but the system that we have is basically designed for a number of reason to put a massively high cost to expecting that comes at the hand of an expensive university education, when we have better opportunities. There are many problems to solve in relation, but realizing that trying to maintain the old paradigm of some educational ideal, ivy-wrapped and nostalgia coated, is more harmful than beneficial under the current circumstances. Times have changed, the posibility for exposure to knoweldge and people have changed, but forces that benefit from the old way keep trying to stuff it all back into the box for their own profit.
Click to expand...


Totally agree that the student loan system is broken and needs more than just reform. It needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Also agree that college has become too expensive. This is largely due to states contributing less and less to state school budgets (forcing tuitions to go up to compensate) and to the fact that colleges are out-competing each other with fancy amenities to become some sort of country-club for young people.

Part of the problem is that kids - who don't have a good concept of money yet, and in many cases aren't the ones paying the bills - often select schools based on their fancy dorms, dining, gym, sports and club amenities, all of which cost LOTS of money, and don't contribute much (if at all) to the quality of education.

When I went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst 25-21 years ago my dorm had blank cinder block walls, a rusty metal frame bed, worn wood desks and chairs and old school manufacturing environment (asbestos?) tile floors. The dining halls were reminiscent of k-12 lunch lady land and the gym as in the basement of an old brick building, smelled like mildew and sweat, and had rusty weights. No air conditioning in the warm months, and heat that was either too cold or too hot from a central steam plant in the winter months. ( I know... Uphill in the snow, both ways.)

Was it luxurious? No. It didn't need to be, and wasn't supposed to be. I still got an absolutely great engineering education, and in state tuition was a fraction of what it is today at about $11k per year. (Though if you had asked me then, I would still have said it was too expensive.)

I was annoyed at things like mandatory "activity fees" doled out to clubs and activities I had no interest in ever attending (and never did) and stupid spending on varsity and intramural sports teams and facilities. (Drove me up an absolute wall when they shut down the dining halls for something called "homecoming" (whatever the hell that is) and forced us to trapse two miles to the other side of campus to eat a shitty hot dog in a parking lot of a football stadium or go without food (or order out instead, which many did, pissed off as they had already paid for the meal plan) but for all of my complaints back then, it was way more reasonable than it is now.

Since young people are - on average - stupid, they choose colleges for stupid reasons. It is no longer enough to have the best academic record. You need luxurious dorms, dining facilities and gyms, expensive clubs and a "beautiful" campus. Oh, and expensive sports teams with expensive coaches and facilities that normal students don't get to use, even as they are paying a higher tuition to compensate for meat head athletes to get a free ride and free tutors so they can focus on sports...

This forces colleges to out-compete each other on these very expensive things, and who pays for it? The students through their rapidly growing tuition. The sad part is that there are very many students who care about the right things, and would rather have a cheaper college experience with excellent academics than all of this, but they are a minority, so no matter what they do it has no effect. They have to pay for this bullshit too, even if they never use any of it.

I visited my alma mater - Umass - a few years ago. I barely recognized large portions of it. Fancy Stadiums, athletes facilities that didn't used to be there.

Apparently Umass has sports teams now, with million dollar coaches and other wasteful shit. I don't remember those existing when I was there. (1999-2003)

They tore down the old (but still perfectly functional) dining halls and erected luxury dining facilities in their place. One that got me to guffaw out loud was the banner extolling that they had been voted "Best Campus Food in America" several years in a row. That certainly wasn't the case when I was there.

FB_IMG_1711476005480.jpg


Something needs to be done to refocus these institutions on academics and academics only, and cut everything else in order to make a good education more affordable.

I just don't have a clue what that would be. But what we have ia thoroughly broken, and only getting more broken every year.
 
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And in other news, easy-to-use contact lists on telephone devices have reduced people's ability to memorize phone numbers, and search engines have reduced people's ability to remember specifics.

We're lazy, why remember the specifics on how to do something when you can instead remember how to retrieve those instructions?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I disagree.

From the perspective of "does it prepare me for the workforce" sure. Many of the things you learn in college are useless for that.

But there is more to higher education than just workforce training.

The original charter of the "liberal arts education" had nothing to do with preparing people for the workforce. It was instead intending to help form and broaden the minds of young men into more worldly beings, exposing them to the arts and teaching them things like philosophy and literature - theory of knowledge if you will - to give them the tools to navigate the world with proper context and become better leaders of men.

As founding father John Adams wrote in 1780:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

Society benefits when the more people have this type of education. It tends to reduce small-mindedness and prejudice, and increase knowledge and understanding, and generally lead to a more beautiful and livable society.

Of course, when that liberal arts education costs you a minimum of $35k a year for 4 years, it becomes really tough to justify if you are not a gilded age elite who comes from money this system was created for, if it does not provide some sort of serious ROI in the form of workforce preparedness, and that aspect of it has definitely not kept pace with the cost in the last 25 years or so.

I used to chafe at my literature and other "general education" requirements as a waste of time and money back when I was in high school on a STEM academic track and in college for engineering, but in retrospect I greatly value those experiences for the more worldly and open minded person they have made me, and know I would not be the person I am today if I didn't have them. I wish everyone could benefit from these experiences.
Click to expand...
Classical education has its place.

It's not for everyone. I'd argue it's not for the bulk of people. Yet, classical education is available, to a degree and scale unfathomable in Adam's time, for little or no cost to families in our public schools. We talk constantly about how well that system is working. And still more than half the US population can't read at a 6th grade level. Of course, that's racist.

Those that want to pursue classical education at a university can, if they have the cash. Children are free to hang out and find themselves for a few years. Most don't have that financial luxury, however. But, now we have equity. And we all get to share in the massive debt from those people who can't afford pursuing products of classical education models.

Adam's idealistic musings were achieved in the last century. Now we will see what happens when his children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's children study.
 
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I just stuck my finger out the windows, and yep, sure enough I've confirmed a week long study of over 10 data points that proves that global climate change has ended. I guess I need to write a magazine article so everyone will know.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I used to chafe at my literature and other "general education" requirements as a waste of time and money back when I was in high school on a STEM academic track and in college for engineering, but in retrospect I greatly value those experiences for the more worldly and open minded person they have made me, and know I would not be the person I am today if I didn't have them. I wish everyone could benefit from these experiences.
Click to expand...
See but you came from a direction of being focused on STEM, I had a very generic high school experience where I didn't really have a "track" at all, so I had the "all arounder" experience in high school, and in college I don't feel those GE courses I took really did much in the way of making me a better person. I mean I understand that if you take AP classes in high school you can often test out of many GE classes in college, but then it really loses a lot of the argument that those classes are to make you "a more well rounded student", now if they were to say "most high schoolers are just too damn dumb for college" then fine I could almost live with that as an argument but again I don't remember shit from the GE classes I took, hell I have a hard time remembering the classes I had to take which shows how impactful they were towards my life, other than a couple English courses because I had a rockin' cool teacher for it, and some courses that were referred to as "Segment III GE" which are 3 extra courses you have to take during your Junior/Senior year that can NOT in any way be related to your major and it's like fuck me just let me take the physics course that I need to take and stop making me take "Social Sciences of Peruvian Natives : A Crunchy Berkenstock Wearers Prospective" Now I kid to the name of one of the courses but it wasn't that far off, and for someone who was more of a free thinker my views weren't not highly regarded towards the teacher.

I mean I'm all for making sure there's a level of English and math competency for college students, but everything else feels a lot like foreign language requirements, yeah you'll get some that recall this or that, but the vast majority forgets it by the time the next semester starts.
 
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sfsuphysics said:
See but you came from a direction of being focused on STEM, I had a very generic high school experience where I didn't really have a "track" at all, so I had the "all arounder" experience in high school, and in college I don't feel those GE courses I took really did much in the way of making me a better person. I mean I understand that if you take AP classes in high school you can often test out of many GE classes in college, but then it really loses a lot of the argument that those classes are to make you "a more well rounded student", now if they were to say "most high schoolers are just too damn dumb for college" then fine I could almost live with that as an argument but again I don't remember shit from the GE classes I took, hell I have a hard time remembering the classes I had to take which shows how impactful they were towards my life, other than a couple English courses because I had a rockin' cool teacher for it, and some courses that were referred to as "Segment III GE" which are 3 extra courses you have to take during your Junior/Senior year that can NOT in any way be related to your major and it's like fuck me just let me take the physics course that I need to take and stop making me take "Social Sciences of Peruvian Natives : A Crunchy Berkenstock Wearers Prospective" Now I kid to the name of one of the courses but it wasn't that far off, and for someone who was more of a free thinker my views weren't not highly regarded towards the teacher.

I mean I'm all for making sure there's a level of English and math competency for college students, but everything else feels a lot like foreign language requirements, yeah you'll get some that recall this or that, but the vast majority forgets it by the time the next semester starts.
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History (world and US), Math, Science, English/Composition, I would even say the Arts are probably worth taking to continue our civilization. If everyone wants to just specialize civilization will fall.

I only finished half of my master's classes before I quit because I didn't see the value any longer, but I don't regret the general classes at all while working on my undergrad degree.

With that said, I also have HVAC/R training and don't regret that either. I consider myself a pretty well-rounded person when it comes to ability to support myself in my retirement.
 
Haven't seen more drivel in a thread in a long time. This was a 4 week study. A 4 week study. That's not enough of a "time-lag" for there to be any implication of causation for something with dreadfully obvious confounding variables. Any deviations could easily be novelty effect. Lazy students use shortcuts - wow I'm shook.
 
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It's more click bait than actual research. ChatGPT isn't even that old yet to determine anything. Also, who cares? We complain when someone uses a calculator?
 
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DukenukemX said:
It's more click bait than actual research. ChatGPT isn't even that old yet to determine anything. Also, who cares? We complain when someone uses a calculator?
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A lot of people do and lot of people study students from Asia and elsewhere that use a lot of mix of mental and Abacus frequently instead of calculator.

Old greek prediction that paper and writing would change people ability to memorize was true (it took thousands of years until paper got cheap for it to happen, similarly it would take a perfect and constant interface to chatgpt to have a big impact, very old school memory technic and training was still common until 18th century).

I.e. it is true that it is not necessarily different than what writing down everything or calculator, but those were not, nothing either and obviously you have positive and negative to be expected.
 
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DooKey said:
History (world and US), Math, Science, English/Composition, I would even say the Arts are probably worth taking to continue our civilization. If everyone wants to just specialize civilization will fall.
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What about those who specialize in history, ones in math, science, arts, etc etc? Civilization wouldn't be on any downward trend, there will still be plenty of other people to take up the good fight, there are plenty of people who would generalize, but the whole point of college is to focus on a subject it's why they give you that piece of paper, plenty of students in other countries do just that.
DooKey said:
I only finished half of my master's classes before I quit because I didn't see the value any longer, but I don't regret the general classes at all while working on my undergrad degree.

With that said, I also have HVAC/R training and don't regret that either. I consider myself a pretty well-rounded person when it comes to ability to support myself in my retirement.
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That's great, what works for you doesn't mean that's the way it has to be for everyone else.
 
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DukenukemX said:
It's more click bait than actual research. ChatGPT isn't even that old yet to determine anything. Also, who cares? We complain when someone uses a calculator?
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If they don't know the underlying math and thus make errors, yes.
 
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Shoganai said:
Using a calculator and using AI to write entire reports and articles and essentially using it to replace thinking aren’t even remotely the same thing.
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When I was in college I was struggling with Calculus, because my college won't let us use graphing or even regular calculators for tests. I then found out that other colleges let you use them during tests. Friend of mine had the most expensive graphing calculator money can buy, and he used them in tests. The more prestige the college, the more lenient they were with calculators during tests. Remember when people would write book reports by using the blurb part of the book? People plagiarized all the time long before the internet as well as AI. Plagiarism online has long since been out of control before AI. Nothing changed, but the tools. Maybe the problem isn't ChatGPT, but the method we teach students?
 
DukenukemX said:
When I was in college I was struggling with Calculus, because my college won't let us use graphing or even regular calculators for tests. I then found out that other colleges let you use them during tests. Friend of mine had the most expensive graphing calculator money can buy, and he used them in tests. The more prestige the college, the more lenient they were with calculators during tests. Remember when people would write book reports by using the blurb part of the book? People plagiarized all the time long before the internet as well as AI. Plagiarism online has long since been out of control before AI. Nothing changed, but the tools. Maybe the problem isn't ChatGPT, but the method we teach students?
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And everything is more important that it is on time than it is done correctly. Even to the work place, screw up a few tasks, you are probably fine. But be late a few times and you are in trouble. Same with school, assignment is late it can count as half or even zero, it is better to just turn in garbage than nothing.

Obviously the extreme to this isnt acceptable, but maybe if the pressure to be fast fast fast is taken back a notch. Im still bitter about my one job and spending a 30minute private meeting to discuss me being 7mins late. Same thing growing up in schools, walking in the room after the bell rings and its a detention even if you were in the doorway. Punctuality became more important than quality so of course people will find ways to do things to try to cram all that stuff in.
 
DukenukemX said:
Plagiarism online has long since been out of control before AI. Nothing changed, but the tools. Maybe the problem isn't ChatGPT, but the method we teach students?
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For some stuff being made by chatgpt talked about I can easily see that it simply made it easier, gpt just saving a couple of step and a ctrl-f after clicking on the same source. Like cheap paper before, calculator and computer did in the past, over time how we teach and test-grade students will have to evolve. With the ability to write everything down, we stopped to learn to make mental palace (something Linus Torvalds used to visual his projects code when he was young), song, physical things to remember, gained time to do something else / paid a price, some place in the world stopped to learn abacus and to do complex math really fast without computer, paid a price, gained time to learn something else in exchange.
 
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DukenukemX said:
When I was in college I was struggling with Calculus, because my college won't let us use graphing or even regular calculators for tests. I then found out that other colleges let you use them during tests. Friend of mine had the most expensive graphing calculator money can buy, and he used them in tests. The more prestige the college, the more lenient they were with calculators during tests.
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Just an aside.
Using calculators on a test is not a college policy, that's 100% on the teacher involved. If your college is small and only one teacher is teaching that level then yeah you could be hosed big time if you have a "this is the way I did it when I was a student" type of teacher. I went to a $10/unit community college to take Calculus back in the early 90s (i.e. not prestigious at all) and a graphing calculator was actually a requirement for the class (was most expensive thing for the class at the time too!)
 
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