Aarhus BSS experiment: AI lifts weak students in exams but drags down the strongest
By Carsten Bergenholtz, Oana Vuculescu, Franziska Günzel-Jensen and Lars Frederiksen (Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University)Built and shared by Carsten Bergenholtz, Oana Vuculescu, Franziska Günzel-Jensen and Lars Frederiksen (Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University), not by me. Summarised from the public sources below. Check them before you rely on a number.
- Who
- Carsten Bergenholtz, Oana Vuculescu, Franziska Günzel-Jensen and Lars Frederiksen (Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University)
- Category
- Education
- Source
- Web
- Dates
- Published 12 Mar 2026 · Found 17 Oct 2026
Four researchers at Aarhus BSS tested what happens when business students get a generative AI chatbot in a time-pressured case exam with no clear answer. Weak students improved and strong students got worse, so the grades converged and the exam stopped showing real differences in skill.
What they built
An experiment with about 140 business school students, combined with qualitative interviews. Some students got access to a GenAI chatbot while solving an open-ended case under time pressure. The researchers compared performance and interviewed students about how they used the AI.
The result
Low performers improved, often by copying chatbot output, while high performers did worse because they struggled to process the large amount of AI output under time pressure. The authors conclude that traditional assessments fail when GenAI masks differences in performance.
Sources
Danish upper secondary schools give students an AI tutor that teachers control
By Rosborg Gymnasium & HF and Learnmark Horsens (with Miira)
Rosborg Gymnasium & HF in Vejle and Learnmark Horsens use the Danish AI tutor Miira to help students with written assignments. Teachers decide how the AI may help, and students' conversations with it can be shared with the teacher.
Harvard study: AI tutor doubled learning gains compared with active learning classes
By Greg Kestin, Kelly Miller m.fl. (Harvard University)
Physicists at Harvard built an AI tutor based on the same pedagogical principles as their active learning classes and tested it in a randomized trial. Students learned significantly more in less time with the AI tutor.
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