Nature reports AI threatens critical thinking in higher education
Researchers warn that students offloading work to AI risk losing the cognitive struggle essential to learning.
What to know
- A 2025 survey found 90% of US faculty worry AI will reduce students' critical-thinking skills; 20% of students using AI already report difficulty solving problems without it.
- Tsinghua researcher Lixiang Yan discovered an agentic AI can complete entire online courses independently, removing the cognitive engagement necessary for learning.
- Science education faces particular risk: students may outsource hypothesis formation, evidence interpretation, and wrestling with uncertainty—the core activities through which scientific thinking develops.
- Experts argue that critical thinking and higher-order reasoning skills are now more essential, not less, but require deliberate pedagogical strategies to preserve.
“Critical thinking is sort of the pinnacle of human cognition. It's kind of a basket term that captures instances in which people are thinking well.”
Daniel Willingham, Cognitive psychologist, University of Virginia · Nature ↗
Lixiang Yan Education researcher, Tsinghua UniversityDaniel Willingham Cognitive psychologist, University of VirginiaThomas Nygren Education and critical thinking researcher, Uppsala UniversityStéphan Vincent-Lancrin OECD critical thinking programme director
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Experts warn scientific thinking specifically at risk from AI outsourcing
Thomas Nygren from Uppsala University noted that science education faces particular threat, as students may outsource the core activities—formulating hypotheses, interpreting evidence, considering alternatives—through which scientific thinking develops.
“There is a risk that students outsource precisely the activities through which scientific thinking develops: formulating hypotheses, interpreting evidence, considering alternatives and struggling with uncertainty…”
— Thomas Nygren -
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'Some researchers are developing teaching methods to help. One approach involves ‘inoculating’ people against mis- and disinformation by showing them examples and tactics used to dupe people — an approach that, some research suggests, can improve teenagers’ ability to spot unreliable social-media posts.'' People familiar with Skeptical Science's…
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“There is a risk that students outsource precisely the activities through which scientific thinking develops: formulating hypotheses, interpreting evidence, considering alternatives and struggling with uncertainty” The battle against cognitive surrender. # Science # AI # Education # Learning # CriticalThinking https://www…
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background
Tsinghua researcher discovers AI can complete entire online courses without student engagement — Education researcher Lixiang Yan at Tsinghua University in Beijing discovered that an agentic AI called Codex could independently complete all assignments, answer questions, and participate in discussions in his online course without requiring intellectual engagement from learners.
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Nature publishes research on AI's threat to critical thinking in education
Nature published an article examining how AI systems like large language models risk undermining students' cognitive development. The piece cites a 2025 survey where 90% of US faculty said they believed generative AI will reduce critical-thinking skills, and notes that around 20% of higher-education students using AI already find it harder to work through problems independently.
“Learning happens as a consequence of cognitive processing. Cognitive processing is typically effortful, and that's what AI effectively removes.”
— Daniel Willingham
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first by Nature, 3d ago · also Nature News
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