Artificial Intelligence in Secondary Education: Educational Affordances and Constraints of ChatGPT-4o Use

TL;DR

This study explores secondary students' perceptions of ChatGPT-4o in education, highlighting its benefits like immediate feedback and knowledge building, alongside concerns about reliability, privacy, and anxiety.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into students' views on AI in education, emphasizing both its educational affordances and constraints from a student perspective.

Findings

Students see AI as aiding knowledge creation and providing immediate feedback.

Main constraints include concerns about content reliability and privacy.

Students are generally positive towards AI integration in education.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine, from the perspective of secondary education students, the educational affordances and constraints of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in teaching and learning. The sample consisted of 45 students from the 2nd year of General Lyceum (11th grade, ages 16-17) in Greece, who, after becoming familiarized with ChatGPT-4o and completing six activities, filled in an open-ended questionnaire related to the research purpose. Open, axial, and selective coding of the data revealed that students recognize five educational affordances: the creation of new knowledge building on prior knowledge, immediate feedback, friendly interaction through messaging, ease and speed of access to information, and skills development. Concurrently, three main constraints were identified: content reliability, anxiety about AI use, and privacy concerns. The study concludes that students are positive toward AI use in education.