Randomized study of 1,000+ students examines ChatGPT and critical thinking
A randomized trial involving over 1,000 university students looked at how using ChatGPT alongside critical-thinking training affected their work on a real-world assignment. The study measured outcomes including originality, critical thinking, and overall performance. It was published by OpenAI and frames the results as evidence that students can get better answers and broader thinking from the combination.
WHY IT MATTERS ↘Because the evidence comes from the model vendor, it may influence institutional procurement and AI-literacy curricula more as marketing than as neutral science, making independent replication and disclosure of task design and baseline conditions essential. For practitioners, the key competitive and governance question is whether pairing LLMs with critical-thinking training improves learning outcomes without creating dependency or eroding assessment validity.