16 Between doubt and support

GenAI has rapidly burst into people’s lives and is widely used in various fields. On the one hand, the development of GenAI excites me because I understand that it allows people to increase productivity. However, this breakthrough is frightening in its ambiguity, as there are risks that people may lose their potential to think creatively and critically (Miao and Holmes, 2023, 24).

In the learning context, GenAI helps learners ask questions without fear of judgement and gives them the opportunity to double-check themselves. Currently, I am a postgraduate student. Moreover, I am an international student, which makes my studies even more challenging. The biggest difficulty was adapting to a new education system, and there was often a fear that I did not understand the task or concept correctly. Even if the language skills are sufficient for learning, there is always a new word or phrase that I might hear for the first time. At such moments, I clarified some details using ChatGPT to reduce anxiety. I do not ask for explanations ‘from scratch’, but, on the contrary, I formulate my understanding and clarify whether it corresponds to the particular context.   

Personally, I always have a hard time learning new technologies, and it takes me a while to understand how they work. So at first, I was wary of GenAI because I couldn’t understand how it generated responses and how to write prompts correctly. Since I am in the field of education, I am always keen to learn something new. Like any other student, I often have doubts and want to find as much evidence as possible to ensure that I understand everything correctly. At such moments, I reread material, comparing it with other sources, and I might also check with responses generated by GenAI.

It is logical to assume that after clarifying with GenAI, my doubts should disappear. However, I am rarely satisfied with the answers. The answers I receive often just make me have even more questions, which is sometimes helpful while learning. Even if the answers from ChatGPT say that I understood correctly, I remain doubtful because I know that this is a collection of answers that consist of snippets of information or data that have been put together based on specific algorithms from a vast range of sources.

According to the UNESCO guide (Miao and Holmes, 2023), people should understand that the parameters by which the answers are generated are not visible, like a black box. But the advantage is that the generated answers are written in ‘simpler language’, which allows me to look at the concepts from a different angle and help me understand them better.  

I think people need to learn how to use it correctly to gain benefits, but not to lose their thinking skills.

I think GenAI helps as an assistant, just like Google in general, but faster. It helps me in the learning process when I am stuck because of a small nuance that does not allow me to move on. For example, when I started planning my final research project for the course, I struggled to understand the difference between two similar concepts. I tried to look at as many sources as possible, but in the articles I read, they were interpreted differently, which made the process even more difficult. I am one of those students who immediately start making drafts, and at some point, doubts begin to arise as to whether I am going in the right direction. I decided to clarify in ChatGPT whether I understood a certain concept correctly, and the answer I received helped me make a judgement, evaluate what I was given together with what I had read, and make sure that I was moving in the right direction. It also enables me to pay attention to other details such as how the concept might apply in real-life learning situations and how it could be adapted to different educational contexts.

Of course, it is natural not to understand something and then, after making mistakes, come to the right answer. But clarifications from GenAI can speed up the process, although GenAI can also make mistakes and generate an answer just to match the question, confusing it even more. Therefore, GenAI as an assistant in clarifications can sometimes be useful, although I still think people need to learn how to use it correctly to gain benefits, but not to lose their thinking skills. It might be a somewhat ironic conclusion, but I suppose that GenAI also promotes the development of critical thinking as a person thinks about the correctness and begins to compare with resources. 

GenAI Tool(s) Used:

ChatGPT

References 

Miao, F. and Holmes, W. 2023. Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research. [Online]. Paris: UNESCO. [Accessed 29 May 2025].  Available from: https://doi.org/10.54675/EWZM9535