TipAI made homework better but exams worse: large study with a Swedish researcher
A study of 26,811 students in China shows that students who started using AI got better homework results but worse results on closed-book exams. One of the researchers behind the study, David Strömberg, works at Stockholm University. The key finding: the drop showed up among students who let AI do the work, while those who kept spending time on their homework lost little. Here is how to use AI at home without the learning disappearing.
The study is called The Generative AI Learning Penalty and was published as a discussion paper by the European research network CEPR on 2 June 2026. It is being widely discussed on social media right now. Behind it are David Strömberg of Stockholm University and Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu of the University of Hong Kong.
The researchers followed 26,811 students in grades 7 to 12 in a county in China for 30 months. They had homework scores, how long homework took, monthly closed-book exams and entrance exams. Students started using AI at different times, which let the researchers compare before and after. The tools were bots, AIs you chat with, like ChatGPT.
Once students had started using AI, homework scores rose by 18 percent and homework took 30 percent less time. But monthly exam scores fell by 20 percent within six months. On the two big entrance exams, results were 18 and 24 percent worse, and the full effect only showed after about two years. The drop was largest in social science subjects, and for younger students, high-achieving students and boys.
The most important finding is about how AI was used. About 80 percent of AI users did their homework unusually fast and still got high scores, which according to the researchers suggests that AI did the work for them. That is where the drop was. Students who kept spending about as much time on homework as students without AI lost only a little.
Good to know: students were not randomly assigned to use AI, and the report is a discussion paper that may change. It concerns schools in China and cannot be transferred directly to the Nordic countries. The researchers also point to an earlier experiment in Turkey, where an AI that gave finished answers to maths questions led to better practice results but worse exam results. The takeaway for us: AI can be a good teacher, but only if the student thinks for themselves.
How to get started
- Talk at home about the difference between getting help to understand and getting finished answers.
- Let your child do the homework first and use AI afterwards, to find mistakes or get an explanation.
- Ask the bot to give hints and ask questions instead of giving the answer. Ready-made prompts are in the Prompt Workshop: Homework help that explains and Quiz me before the test.
- Practise for exams without AI, since the exams are taken without it.
- Ask the school what rules apply to AI in homework and assignments, and feel free to make your own rules at home.
More on TipAI
Sources
- CEPR Discussion Paper DP21577: The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education (Strömberg, Lei och Wu, 2 juni 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-23)
- Studien som PDF (juni 2026), med författarnas lärosäten: Stockholms universitet och Hongkongs universitet (retrieved 2026-10-23)
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