The skills that earn top grades are the ones AI can fake best
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An experiment at Bocconi University with over 1,000 freshmen tested the effects of GPT-4o and a causal reasoning lesson on a business assignment. Students with access to GPT-4o scored nearly a full point higher on a 1-to-5 scale, with more ideas and more coherent arguments. The causal reasoning lesson did not improve traditional scores but led to more diverse and unusual solutions, with students explaining why their proposals might work or fail. Combining both interventions did not add further grade improvement, but the two approaches had complementary effects on different measures. The researchers note that grading criteria rewarded conventional, well-structured answers, while originality and diversity were correlated with lower scores. The study did not include a follow-up test measuring actual learning without AI, so it remains unclear if the grade boost reflected gained knowledge. Other studies cited in the article suggest that when AI replaces thinking rather than supports it, students perform worse once AI is removed, with long-term exam scores declining. The authors argue that grading systems need to reward originality and reasoning, but changing them may require broader educational reform.
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