Marketplace Tech What do students lose when they rely on AI for homework?
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Mar 23, 2026 
Heather Schwartz, co-director of the American Youth Panel at RAND and co-author of a report on student AI use, discusses research on how students use AI for homework. She covers why many students worry about impacts on critical thinking, how reliance can reduce cognitive practice and future skills, and strategies like protected AI-free time and scaffolding to preserve first-draft thinking.
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Parent Example Of AI Doing Homework For Kids
- Heather Schwartz shares her daughter using ChatGPT to take a picture of a math problem and get a full, elegant walkthrough instead of solving it herself.
- That example illustrates how students become passive consumers of AI-produced reasoning rather than doing the cognitive work themselves.
AI Can Create Short Term Gains But Long Term Dependency
- Students using AI can show short-term gains while they have access but may perform worse once AI is removed on assessments.
- This suggests AI can act as a crutch that prevents development of durable, transferable problem-solving skills.
Require First Drafts Before Letting AI Help
- Protect first-draft thinking by requiring students to attempt problems or produce a draft before using AI assistance.
- Scaffold AI into learning only after students have struggled through initial synthesis to build cognitive skills.