Teens think their schools are doing a good job preparing them for an AI-driven world but remain concerned about how the technology will help or hurt their job prospects, a new survey shows.
“Students are feeling pretty confident that they are getting the skillset they need to work with AI,” said Ed Grocholski, the chief marketing officer for Junior Achievement USA, which produced the survey in partnership with Ipsos, a market research firm. But what students really want to learn is “how to use [AI] in a way that will benefit them and help them both economically today and tomorrow.”
The survey of 1,005 teens ages 13 to 17—conducted June 29 and 30—comes as many schools are pumping up their efforts to help students develop skills that align with a rapidly evolving workforce. It found that 61% of students feel schools are helping them develop the AI skills they need for the future.
Schools are trying to help students develop AI and other workforce skills through work-based learning and career and technical education, and opportunities for them to take college courses in high school.
Those efforts align with another finding of the Junior Achievement/Ipsos survey: 87% of teens said they learn best when they can apply what they’re learning to real-world situations.
“Anytime there’s an opportunity to broaden that educational experience to where [students are] having some sort of real-world application of what they’ve learned is a hugely positive thing,” Grocholski said. “The students recognize it, and educators recognize that as well.”
Students need to develop ‘human advantage skills’
More than half of teens (55%) said they are concerned about the impact AI will have on their ability to get a job in the future.
Grocholski said schools should focus on teaching students how to use AI while also helping them develop “human advantage skills,” including critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and interpersonal communication.
"[Students must] understand when AI is doing the job effectively,” he said. “If [students are] going to be managing AI agents someday, [they need] to understand if AI is telling them what they want to hear versus what they need to hear.”
These survey results also come as pushback grows against technology use in classrooms. Grocholski cautions that it’s important schools don’t revert to a point where there is hardly any technology use in classrooms at all.
“We are a technology-driven world these days,” he said. “It’s really finding a way to strike that right balance between the lessons that provide real-world application and then the use of technology to help support all of that.”
