America’s STEM students are falling into an ‘AI dependence spiral’
Science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, are all fields that rely on critical thinking. But a new study revealed that many STEM students may be losing those skills due to their use of artificial intelligence.
A new study from Oregon State University shows that significant use of generative AI tools in STEM fields isn’t just changing how students work but possibly reshaping how they think.
“The most surprising finding was that the ‘AI-savvy’ ones, who you might think do significantly better in STEM careers, are actually spinning themselves deeper into the AI dependence spiral,” Rudrajit Choudhuri, a graduate student who led the study, said to KOIN.
AI/critical thinking study
Researchers found a link between frequent reliance on AI and a decline in critical thinking, reflection, and the want to understand complex material.
That study surveyed roughly 300 students across multiple North American universities. It found that students who regularly use AI tools were more likely to use it for tasks that typically require critical thinking.
The study also found that it regularly became a habit that weakens the mental skills STEM education is meant to build.
The researchers call it “cognitive debt.”
Essentially, it’s a slow erosion of intellectual habits caused by repeated shortcuts. As students rely more on AI, they engage less deeply with material, which in turn makes them more likely to depend on AI again the next time.
“Today we make shopping lists rather than rely on memory, let calculators do our arithmetic and use GPS instead of reading maps,” Anita Sarma, a doctoral advisor who worked on the study, said.
The study found that the students most vulnerable to this cycle are typically the most technically confident.
“The most surprising finding was that the ‘AI-savvy’ ones, who you might think do significantly better in STEM careers, are actually spinning themselves deeper into the AI dependence spiral,” Choudhuri said.
Impact
The implications of this issue also go beyond the classroom.
STEM graduates are usually expected to solve unfamiliar problems, think independently, and adapt to new challenges.
“The types of skills that students are farming out to AI actually put them in a hole when it comes to developing skills that are genuinely needed,” Christopher Sanchez, an associate professor of psychological science who worked on the study, said.
To address this issue, the researchers recommended changes to how these students use AI.
That includes designing assignments that require exploration and creativity, like through storytelling or puzzles.
They also recommended alternating between AI-assisted and independent work, and to push students to critique or debug AI-generated responses rather than accept them at face value.
Their hope is to move AI more into a tool that supports critical thinking instead of replacing it.
That distinction may be the difference between a generation of students who use AI to sharpen their skills — and one that gradually forgets how to think without it.
“If routine reliance on AI changes students’ willingness to engage in effortful thinking, many may enter professional life without having developed the intellectual habits that earlier generations gained through practice,” Margaret Burnett, a distinguished professor of computer science who worked on the study, said.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
