1 July 2026

‘The Week Junior’ had the results of a  survey on AI in their ‘Science and Technology’ section. The study was  undertaken by Oxford University Press. They were examining how young people  felt about using AI in their lessons and for their homework. It involved 4,000 young people aged 13-18.

Researchers gave one group of students a written task as well as access to an AI tool. Interestingly, 72% of them decided not to use AI. One of the students who chose not to use AI said, ‘AI doesn’t have opinions, so it can’t write what you are thinking and what you believe and sometimes it gives you fake information.’

The researchers gave a separate group a written task but this time the students had no access to AI. Only 23% of them said that they would like to have had  an AI tool to help  them with the task. The results from both groups was similar.

Of the other results, 24% of young people frequently use AI tools to help with their homework. 34% only use it when  the teacher suggests it. And, amazingly, 44% thought it was cheating to use AI to complete their homework.

In discussing their teachers, the young people their teachers should use it more to help with planning their lessons and making concepts more easily understandable. Almost three-quarters of the students thought that the teacher had skills that AI could never replace.

The two mentioned in the  article were personability by  which they meant things like ‘being pleasant and friendly’ and understanding pupils. A machine cannot create human warmth and understanding. Education needs to have heart if young people are going to be inspired. God made us that way!