It’s not just teachers who are worried about AI’s effect on students’ abilities to think critically. Students are concerned, too, according to a new survey of middle, high school, and college students by the RAND Corp.
Nearly 7 in 10 middle and high school students say they are concerned that using AI for schoolwork is eroding their critical thinking skills. And students are growing more worried.
Forty-eight percent of middle school students said they were concerned about AI harming their critical thinking skills in February of 2025. That number climbed to 68% by December. Among high schoolers, that percentage increased from 55% to 65% over the same time period. College students, too, expressed concern, with 70 percent indicating that AI use may be harming their critical thinking skills.
“Just thinking it harms your critical thinking isn’t proof that it’s harming your critical thinking,” said Heather Schwartz, the co-director of the American Youth Panel at RAND. “But there are a handful of studies coming out showing that AI is functioning like a crutch for students.”
Even though students are worried about AI undermining their critical thinking skills, they are increasingly using the technology to do their homework.
AI might be giving you a really beautiful explanation about what you can do and how to go about it. It's still removing that step for you. And I think it's shortchanging your learning in the process.
The RAND surveys found that from May to December of 2025, the percentage of middle school students who reported using the technology for homework rose from 30% to 46%, while the percentage of high schoolers rose from 49% to 60%.
While students in college use AI the most, Schwartz said that trend will likely pick up among K-12 students.
“The older the student, the more kids are using it for more classes, for more purposes,” she said. “My sense is that younger students are going to progressively use this more and more.”
General generative AI chatbots—such as ChatGPT, Claude AI, and Google Gemini—are far and away more popular among middle and high school students than other AI-powered tools with more specific purposes, such as those designed for tutoring, mental health, and college and career advising. Forty-nine percent of middle school students and 61% of high school students report using AI chatbots.
What are students using AI for in their schoolwork?
How, exactly, students are using AI for school-related purposes varies by the grade level. The most common tasks high school students use AI for are brainstorming and getting better explanations on assignments, with 37% of survey respondents saying that’s what they use AI for.
Middle school students are most likely to use AI for looking up facts, with 32% of middle school survey respondents saying they do this.
But does using AI to do schoolwork count as cheating?
The survey found that students’ definition of cheating is fairly narrow. On most tasks, a majority of survey respondents ranging from middle schoolers to college students did not consider AI use to be cheating (the report does not separately break out middle and high school responses on this data). The one exception was using AI to get homework answers, which 45% of respondents said constitutes cheating.
Many students are left to determine on their own whether using AI to help do their schoolwork is OK, the report found. A third of middle and high school students indicated that their school had a rule for using AI in homework. The rest indicated that either there was no rule, they didn’t know if there was a rule, or that it depended upon individual teachers.
High school students were more likely than middle schoolers to report that rules for using AI depend upon the teacher and that their teachers are checking for AI use. Consequently, high school students are more worried about getting accused of using AI to cheat, with 64% saying this was a concern for them.
Use of AI might bypass meaningful struggles to learn
In sum, what does this all mean?
The report examined whether a combination of students’ behaviors and beliefs affect whether they use AI for homework. It found that students who are not worried about AI use affecting their critical thinking skills and attend a school where they are allowed to use AI is correlated with heavier AI use for schoolwork.
Students’ perceptions that AI is undermining their critical thinking skills should give educators pause, said Schwartz.
While research on how AI might harm or boost students’ learning is still emerging, and teachers are finding it extremely helpful in their practice, Schwartz said she is concerned with how and when students are using AI. Specifically, she is worried about students using AI for what she calls first-draft thinking.
“That initial struggle, the blank page, the math problem that doesn’t yet have any steps in it, that you have to figure out what first step to take—that is like a tiny moment of friction,” she said. “It’s a cognitive challenge that you as a student have to draw on your background knowledge. And AI might be giving you a really beautiful explanation about what you can do and how to go about it. It’s still removing that step for you. And I think it’s shortchanging your learning in the process.”
