# Better answers, broader thinking: What students gain from ChatGPT and critical-thinking training

In a randomized trial with over 1,000 undergraduates, ChatGPT access raised work quality while causal reasoning training increased idea diversity.

- Students with GPT-4o access scored nearly a full point higher on a five-point scale and produced work closer to expert submissions.
- Causal-reasoning exercises did not raise rubric scores but produced a wider, more distinct range of student ideas.
- Combining ChatGPT access with critical-thinking training yielded the highest gains across rubric scores, idea counts, and logical coherence.

## Why it matters

Educators evaluating AI adoption have empirical data showing that AI improves answer structure while explicit reasoning training is required to foster original ideas.

## Sources

- [OpenAI: Better answers, broader thinking: What students gain from ChatGPT and critical-thinking training](https://openai.com/index/what-students-gain-from-chatgpt-critical-thinking-training)

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Summarized by dstilled on 2026-08-27. https://dstilled.ai/story/6dc74f3d-021e-4745-9c81-4dba37be7091