Revolutionising Distance Learning: A Comparative Study of Learning Progress with AI-Driven Tutoring
This addresses the challenge of improving learning efficiency for university distance learners, showing a scalable effect but is incremental as it builds on existing AI tutoring concepts.
The study tackled the problem of demonstrating generative AI's impact on university-level education at scale, finding that using an AI-powered teaching assistant reduced distance learning students' study time by about 27% on average in the third month after its release.
Generative AI is expected to have a vast, positive impact on education; however, at present, this potential has not yet been demonstrated at scale at university level. In this study, we present first evidence that generative AI can increase the speed of learning substantially in university students. We tested whether using the AI-powered teaching assistant Syntea affected the speed of learning of hundreds of distance learning students across more than 40 courses at the IU International University of Applied Sciences. Our analysis suggests that using Syntea reduced their study time substantially--by about 27\% on average--in the third month after the release of Syntea. Taken together, the magnitude of the effect and the scalability of the approach implicate generative AI as a key lever to significantly improve and accelerate learning by personalisation.